Subject: Re: paroi ro mentu

From: "jjllambias2000" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 17:43:07 -0000

la and cusku di'e

> Looking at it purely as a grammatical problem, I don't think
> you can justifiably complain about {ro da poi mentu zo'u
> le plini cu mulcarna paroi da} requiring forethought. That's
> an almost inevitable consequence of an unambiguous logical language.

I'm not sure that the quantifier in the tag is at the
same level as the quantifier of the sumti. I think it's
like a quantifier embedded within a selbri (tags are basically 
selbri after all) and thus it has minimal scope with respect
to its sumti. In other words, {paroi}, as a tag and with
respect to its simti, is acting like the selbri {rapli li pa}, 
and so {pa} does not have scope over the sumti's quantifier.
(I emphasize that this is only with respect to its sumti, not
with respect to other sumti.)

> Looking at it as a semantic problem, what you want to say is
> "The planet revolves, and for each month during which the planet 
> revolves, it revolves once", and not "During every month, the 
planet 
> revolves once".

(I meant "rotates", but that doesn't change the issue. Also,
{mentu} is "minute": it's a planet with 144 sunsets every 24 
hours, that's why the little prince, who is very fond of sunsets,
likes it so much.)

> Does {re roi la uenzdix klama} mean "go twice on Wednesday"?

Yes.

> You want {re roi ci djedi ku klama} to mean "go twice on each of 3 
> days", so the going occurs over 3 days, six goings in all.

Correct.

> Whereas, standardly it means "go twice, each going occuring on
> three days, = 6 days' worth of going, with two goings in all.

No, it can't mean that. That would be {re roi lo djedi be li ci}

{ci djedi} cannot be the length of one occurrence, it is
three separate lengths. That's why I think the sumti's 
quantifier always has precedence. Otherwise you'd be talking
of two occasions, each of which happens in each of three days.

Compare with {ca ci djedi}: It says something happens three
times, on three separate days, not that it happens simultaneously 
on three days: therefore {ci} has scope over {ca}.

> I don't really see why the nonstandard interp is so much better 
> than the standard that it justifies its deviancy.

I don't think the "standard" (if by that we mean that the tag's
quantifier has scope over its sumti) can ever be meaningful. I don't
think it is standard either, as there hasn't been any official
discussion of the matter.

mu'o mi'e xorxes