Subject: Re: Editorial comment

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 19:03:16 -0000

la and cusku di'e

> > Each person seeing each person could be expressed as "le'i
> > ci prenu cu visysi'u", perhaps.
> 
> This is not satisfactory. We want a generalizable method, not one
> that relies on changing the selbri.
> 
> Something like:
> 
> le ci prenu ku goi ko'a viska ro ko'a
> 
> while "ci da poi prenu cu viska vo'a" would be equivalent to
> 
> le ci prenu goi ko'a viska (ro) ko'a

I don't see the difference between assigning the ko'a or not, or
between whether the 'goi'-phrase goes before or after the 'ku'. The
outer quantifier on "le ci prenu" is "ro", and so it shouldn't make a
difference whether the 'goi' is before or after the 'ku'. (Also, I
don't like making distinctions based on whether the relative phrase is
before or after the 'ku'.)

On thinking about the problem further, here's what I came up with
(incorporating xorxes' understanding of double quantification):

"vo'a", like a second, unquantified "da", indicates each of the
referents of the original members of the set parallelly, i.e.

ci da poi prenu cu viska da/vo'a
Three people see themself.

le ci prenu cu viska vo'a
The three people see themself.

(each see themself, a sees a, b sees b, and c sees c.)

If vo'a (the first time) or da (the second+ time) are quantified, then
it takes the specified number from the original set. So:

ci da poi prenu cu viska ro da
Three people see all people. (where set the taken from is the set of
all people)

ci da poi prenu cu viska ro vo'a
Three people see each of them. (where the set taken from is the
aforementioned three people.)

le ci prenu cu viska ro vo'a
The three people see each of them (a sees a,b,c, etc.)

And it can probably apply to the rest of the anaphoric pronouns
(ko'a, ri, ra, ru, etc.)

gaps in the book:
I think that when an unresolved point or a gap in the book comes up,
we should debate it to death, and then when a consensus is reach, or
else (in the more likely case) that several opposing opinions get
crystalized, we should put up the various positions on the wiki, and
then let informed usage decide. In this way, the wiki may eventually
come to completely expound all the parts that the book missed.

mu'o mi'e adam