Re: cleft place structures

[John Cowan <cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>]

Arthur Protin wishes to consider the sentence:

	mi galfi le blanu bitmu le xunre bitmu le nu cinta preja
	I modify the blue wall into the red wall by paint-spreading.

This represents the cleft place structure of "galfi":

	x1 modifies x2 into x3 by doing/being x4

He argues that the suggested replacement,

	the event x1 modifies x2 into x3

is equivalent to the old place structure with x1 and x4 swapped and the
old x1 elided.

A difficulty with his view arises when the one-who-modifies (old x1) and
the actor of the event (x1 of abstraction within old x4) are not the same.
The old place structure treats as legitimate sentences like:

	 I modify the blue wall into the red wall
		by the act of your spreading paint.

But if you are doing the paint spreading, in what sense am I thought to be
the "one who modifies?"  The new place structure eliminates the possibility
of saying such (seemingly) self-contradictory things.

-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban