Subject: Second session on Record: anaphora

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:10:42 EDT

{vo'a, -e,-i,-o,-u} refer to the sumti occuppying the corresponding {fV} 
places in the uppermost of nested bridi, i.e., the bridi in which the others 
are nested. This clarifies an apparent conflict between the Book and the 
cmavo list.

{no'a [xiPA]} This repeats the bridi PA levels up from the place where it 
occurs. The default {no'a} = {no'axipa} the bridi in which the occurrence is 
immediately nested. The topmost bridi in the nesting chain (the one to whose 
sumti {vo'V} refer) is always reachable as {no'axiro}. For counting 
purposes, a new level begins as soon as a subordinate bridi is guaranteed: at 
NU or NOI [are there others? - LE had best not count or this whole thing gets 
to be too complicated].
The ordering of the levels (from the bottom up rather than top down) 
and of the default case (lowest rather than highest) were based on practical 
considerations: what would most likely be used and which could be calculated 
most easily. 
The rule about when a new level starts is controversial, since it 
allows for paradoxes: reference to incomplete bridi, to sumti that have not 
yet appeared, and even self-referencing. However, given that this system 
defines reference by level, any other version is totally arbitrary, and every 
version allows these same problems at some point (indeed, in intrasentence 
anaphora of this sort, every reference to the present or higher bridi must be 
to an incomplete object, since the bridi of which the present reference is a 
part, cannot be complete until after this reference is done). 

{nei} repeats the bridi in which it occurs.
This leads to more immediate paradox, since {nei} standing alone is 
presumably a complete bridi, namely itself -- desperately hard to interpret. 
However, things like {le nei} are needed to repeat sumti in that bridi for 
reflexives and the like when the bridi involved is not the topmost one, for 
which {vo'V} are used. 

[I can't help wondering if, were we not now frozen in, this whole system 
could have been rendered somewhat less messy. For example, to get sumti from 
various levels, perhaps {vo'V[xiPA]} could have been used, avoiding the messy 
bridi anaphora altogether ({vo'Vxiro} = {vo'V}). But if bridi anaphora is 
needed, perhaps it would be better to recognize that LE too starts a 
subordinate bridi and then do without {nei}, thus avoiding one round of 
paradoxes and yet covering all the practical cases (I think, but have not 
pushed the process too far). ]