Re: cleft place structures

["Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) <cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin>]

Folks,
    I started this mostly as inertia, resistance to change.
Now I find that I rationally oppose the suggested revision
to "galfi" to address the "cleft place structure" problem.

    Commuting home last night I thought about the problem
and I not only find John Cowan's argument insufficiant but
I now think that it is inappropriate: W-S ALERT.  I expect
the language to allow me to freely express bizarre ideas
without the interference of the "language police".  Just
as I should be allow to say 

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

I should also be allowed to say

        le  nu     mi mlatu   HH
	The act of me catting is the process which

		galfi    le blanu bitmu     le xunre lalxu
		modified the blue wall into the red lake.

where HH is either the x1/x4 swapping indicator for the old
definition of galfi or is nothing for the new one.


IT IS INAPPROPRIATE FOR THE LANGUAGE SYNTAX TO BE MODIFIED TO
RESTRICT WHAT CAN BE SAID.  (I have no objection to making
nonsense look like nonsense, but nonsense still has to be allowed.)
----


In thinking about the cleft place structure problem I found
I wanted some indicators (cmavo) that I could not find (I may
have actually seen them in the list but did not recognize them
as the indicators that I wanted.)  I will describe the bunch of
them and their usage using symbols that are outside of the
language. 

    Let me call them here "Hi", "H1'o", "H1'a", "H2'o", "H2'a" ....
The first of these, "Hi", binds to a predicate ("brivla"?) and
the others are pseudo-predicates (like "mo").  

    (I have a little problem, I forgot to lookup the three
    basic tense indicators so please substitute them in
    where I use "hp" for past, "hc" for present, and
    "hf" for future. (It is annoying that these had to
    change from loglan).)

The pseudo-predicates come in matched pairs, "H1'o" with "H1'a",
and I am not sure how many are needed.  The first of each
pair ,"'o", is the (radical) binding form while the other
is the bound form.  The binding form takes is definition from
the usage and the bound form allows that definition to be
referenced.  The first example of usage assumes delusions
of grandeur on my part:

    la dactr. braun. hp H1'o 	.i la lojbab. hc H1'o 
    Dr. Brown        was this-pred.  Lojbab is this-pred.

    .i mi hf H1'a
       I will-be that-pred.

The purpose of the indicator "Hi" is to reference a predicate
without allowing any of its place structure to be occupied.
The indicator "le" references the thing which occupies a
place.  (Since I don't have a predicate for the above example,
let us imagine that one was/is/will-be found and read it
in place of the symbol "HreHo")

    Hi             HreHo              du     Hi H1'a
    the predicate (what-ever-we-find) equals ...that-pred.

(Gosh, this looks really strange with one one real word
in it.)

This indicator, "Hi", that I want is the one that I thought was
the appropriate one for use to reference the 4th place of galfi.

As in

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

Thus, while I would be allowing you to believe that I paint-spread
to modify the wall, I am not saying that, nor am I saying that
it was one event, nor am I saying that red paint was spread.
If I want to express these details I will follow this statement
with others that elaborate.  If you feel a need to know these
details you will inquire.

While we are on this example again, what is wrong with saying

        mi galfi le blanu bitmu le xunre
        I modify the blue wall into the red [thing].

or

        mi galfi le blanu bitmu lo xunre
        I modify the blue wall into a red [thing].

where either we both know that the red thing is the wall that
we knew as blue OR we both know what other red thing it became
OR I am being dishonest by allowing you to think that the
result was a red wall.  I see the second of this pair as
saying that the thing we knew as the blue wall was changed
such that it is now really red and we can still refer to it
as the blue wall.
Interestingly the sentence 

        mi galfi le blanu bitmu le xunre bitmu
        I modify the blue wall into the red wall

seems to require only the revision of the reference.  Thus

        mi galfi le blanu bitmu le xunre bitmu dei pamoi
        I modify the blue wall into the red wall by this utterance

can easily be true because you will now know that what we
called the blue wall we now call the red wall.

    thank you all,
    Arthur Protin


Arthur Protin <protin@pica.army.mil>
These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss
or this installation.