Subject: remarks on no'a (was: RE: [lojban] Re: Well I guess you do learn something new every day...)

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:38:47 +0100

Adam:
> 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.

Reflexives are not necessarily arguments of the bridi their antecedent
is an argument of. E.g. "I bought a picture of myself" would be a
putative English example.

> 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. 

Not very basically equivalent -- not at all equivalent when there
are more than two bridi levels. Anyway, I think nei/no'a (no'a xi
re/ci/vo to get to higher bridi, {no'a xi ro} to get to the main bridi) 
are the most useful -- much more important than the vo'a series, however 
that series is defined. 

> 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.

Brodeing -- because that is how {no'a} is defined. But see below for
an answer along the lines of "Neither".

> 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.)

Nonstandardly, I think it should mean "I'm sad that you know
that zo'e is the x1 argument of the next outer bridi in this sentence".

In other words, the interpretation of {no'a} would not be analogous to
the interpretation of {go'a}.

--And.