Subject: Re: [lojban] Two questions for the RECORD

From: "James F. Carter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:09:28 -0700 (PDT)

Scoping issues get entangled, yes, but I would expect a symbol to represent
its assigned antecedent, unmodified. If you want it to represent "lo ci
cribe" you have to say "lo ci cribe" (the three bears as a mass or team). 
Thus your 2.1 would be correct: each of the three bears saw one pillow on
its own bed. Following along in the story, each individually (not as a
mass) made comments about the porridge, each individually had trouble
sitting in three individual chairs, etc., and ko'a would always represent
the three of them as individuals.

So there's a bit of a problem when they all jump on Goldilocks as a team.
Does anyone want to try transforming ko'a to work in that case? It would
definitely take re-gadri-zation, but someone up-to-date on the grammar and
semantic issues is going to have to say how to do it.

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897	FAX 310 206 6673
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On Wed, 24 May 2000, Jorge Llambias wrote:

> ...
> Question 2: What about assignable pro-sumti?
> Consider this:
> 
> ko'a goi le ci cribe cu nerkla le zdani
> i ko'a viska pa kicne le ko'a ckana
> 
> What does the last sentence mean? Is it:
> 
> 2.1) Each of the bears sees one pillow on its own bed.
> 
> 2.2) Each of the bears sees one pillow on each of their beds.
> 
> 2.3) The three bears see one pillow on their bed(s).
> 
> I think (2.3) would be the one I prefer, that goi
> massify a multiple referent before the assignment.
> Otherwise it seems it would be bad form to assign
> multiple referents to ko'a, because as ko'a can survive
> for many sentences, scoping issues can get pretty
> entangled.