From lojbab@lojban.org Mon Aug 06 21:20:21 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 7 Aug 2001 04:20:20 -0000 Received: (qmail 44536 invoked from network); 7 Aug 2001 04:20:20 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 7 Aug 2001 04:20:20 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-4.cais.net) (205.252.14.74) by mta1 with SMTP; 7 Aug 2001 04:20:20 -0000 Received: from user.lojban.org (dynamic113.cl7.cais.net [205.177.20.113]) by stmpy-4.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f774KIK27267 for ; Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:20:18 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010807000449.00c4e1d0@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 00:18:16 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] no'a In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 07:31 PM 8/6/01 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote: >What do these mean? > >1- la djan ba klama lo zarci pu le nu la meris no'a > > A) John will go to some store before Mary goes to it. > B) John will go to some store before Mary goes to one. > >2- la djan ba klama ro zarci pu le nu la meris no'a > > A) John will go to each store before Mary goes to it. > B) John will go to every store before Mary goes to any. > >3- la djan ba klama le zdani be vo'a pu le nu la meris no'a > > A) John will go to his home before Mary goes there. > B) John will go to his home before Mary goes to hers. The answer to all these is "unspecified", because indeed we did not decide exactly what no'a meant when used as a selbri, but put it in the language for use in le no'a le se no'a etc. in parallel with le go'i and le se go'i as ways of dealing with the sumti anaphora problem. Relatively little time was given to the question of predication anaphora being used to "reuse" the predicate, except in the case of go'i for agreement and disagreement. My first inclination is therefore to recast the above in go'i like terms and ask what they mean, then use the parallel for no'a. Thus >1- la djan ba klama lo zarci pu le nu la meris no'a Means the same as la djan ba klama lo zarci .ibabo la meris. go'i and likewise for the other two. I will beg answering your three questions in part because I think at least the "ro" question gets into quantificational issues, which we have all agreed I am less than competent to judge. In my opinion, the proper way to evaluate the sentence would be to a) use the parallel to go'i to judge how sumti are or are not copied by predicate anaphora, and b) export the quantifier to the prenex and using the indicated scope (which I think is long in this case) to determine the quantification of the ellipsized sumti in the anaphorized bridi. I'll let someone else say how this analysis actually comes out. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org