Subject: Re: Well I guess you do learn something new every day...

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 14:38:26 -0000

la nitcion. cusku di'e

> Robin was right about {vo'a}, it turns out, and I was wrong. {vo'a},
in
> referring to the main bridi rather than the local bridi, does not
behave
> like most reflexives in the world (which is why I thought we didn't
do
> it.) There are clear reasons you would want vo'a to do so in Lojban,
> though, given that anaphora is more difficult the longer you go, and
{ri}
> will do just as well as {vo'a} for a local bridi referent, but {ra}
is
> unmanageable for a main bridi referent out of an abstraction. And
> Norwegian and Icelandic, amongst others, do have long-distance
reflexives
> like this.

Personally, I like the interpretation that the "vo'a" series refers to
the places of the same bridi, so that it's easy to make reflexives
with "vo'a" instead of "sevzi", which seems a bit malglico, and since
it hasn't really been defined in anything really formal yet, it might
still be that way.

At any rate, as noted in the article, there's another way to do both
of these. "le nei", "le se nei", etc. will work for the current bridi
interpretation, and "le no'a", "le se no'a", etc. is basically
equivalent to the main bridi interpretation of the "vo'a" series. The
question is, in a sentence like "broda le nu brode le nu no'a", does
the "no'a" refer to the brode-ing or the broda-ing? I really can't
come up with a good reason why it would refer to the bridi exactly one
level up and not the main bridi.

mi pensi le nu le nu no'a cu rinka le nu mi djuno

Is it my thinking (likely) or being the cause (???) that makes me
know.

mi badri le nu do djuno le du'u no'a

Does it mean that I'm sad that you know that I'm sad, or that you know
that you know (that you know, etc.)

mu'o mi'e adam.