Semntics of abstractors

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!bradford.ac.uk!C.J.Fine>]

Abstractors (NU) have three components to their function:
- a syntactic one (they take a sentence and function as a selbri)
- an abstract semantic one (they take the meaning of a sentence and deliver
that of a selbri)
- a specific semantic one (eg 'event', 'experience')

For the following discussion, I am going to assume that "su'u" lacks the last
of these, and treat it as having only the abstract functions; each of the
others is then equivalent to "su'u" plus a specific semantics. In what
follows I will render "su'u" as "chunk", to indicate its purely abstract
(syntactic and semantic) function.

On this basis, I believe that NU can be analysed thus:

le nu mi sipna = le su'u mi sipna kei voi fasnu
(I use "voi" because there is a clear sense of "which I am choosing to treat
as an event for present purposes" - it's not perfect, because "voi" is
restrictive as well as subjective - this exposition really needs a subjective
incidental)
This formulation only works when the abstraction is used as a description. In
substantive bridi, it looks something like

ta nu mi sipna = ta su'u mi sipna vau fi'o ve skicu lo fasnu
"That is-the-chunk: (I sleep), described-as an event" (the fi'o is attached
to the su'u-selbri as an extra place)

Hereafter I shall use the "voi" form throughout, for convenience.

Some of the 10 specific NU are easy to render this way:

1) NU
lenu mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi fasnu ("described as an event")

2) LI'I
leli'i mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi se lifri ("as something experienced")

3) ZU'O
lezu'o mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi se zukte ("an action")

4) SI'O
lesi'o mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi sidbo ("an idea")

Slightly harder, just because of the difficulty finding a suitable selbri,
are:
5) DU'U
ledu'u mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi se cusku ("something expressed")
or                                voi se djuno ("something known")
or                                voi fatci ("a fact")

6) MU'E
lemu'e mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi mokca ("point in time")
or                                voi mokca fasnu ("point-in-time event")
The English rendering of "mu'e" as "achievement" suggests that "se snada"
belongs in there, but I think this would be a mistake.

7) ZA'I
leza'i mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi ze'e ranji
                                   ("that continues over a period")

With the last three, I have problems.

8) NI
I have had difficulty with this word for a long time, being unsure what it
meant, and suspecting that it was extracting something from the bridi, rather
than 'chunking' it (hence my answer to Iain that the difference from
"jaila'u" was very small). This analysis has just shown me where my problem
was: I have been trying to make it

leni mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi klani
which doesn't make any sense to me, and therefore I was looking for another
"klani" somewhere in the chunk. However, if this is rendered

leni mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi se klani ("as something with a quantity")

it makes much more sense. Thus

leni mi sipna cu so'imei = lesu'u mi sipna cu se klani li so'i

which is still not specific as to whether it is the frequency, the length,
the intensity, the noisiness, or some other aspect of my sleeping which is
many, but is in line with the other NU words.

9) KA
I have had similar concerns with KA, though slightly less clear-cut.
Again, the transformation now seems to me to be

leka mi sipna = lesu'u mi sipna voi ckaji ("as a thing characterised")

rather than "voi se ckaji" as I thought.

10) JEI
"jei" gives a special problem, as it is not the chunk at all, but the result
of an operation (truth evaluation) on the chunk. I don't think that "lejei mi
sipna" is *any sort of* "lesu'u mi sipna", as I have been using "su'u" here.
One might try:

lejei mi sipna = leni ledu'u mi sipna kei cu jetnu
               = lesu'u ledu'u mi sipna kei jetnu kei voi se klani
               = lesu'u lesu'u mi sipna kei voi fatci
                              cu jetnu kei voi se klani
but in fact I believe that "jei" is about THE ONLY THING IN THE LANGUAGE which
delivers a truth value, and I don't know how to deal with it. (Logical
connectives do so only at a meta-level - the meaning of a connected item is a
sumti, a bridi, a jufra etc according to the operands of the connective)


This analysis leads me to several conclusions:

1) Despite my earlier reservations, "ka" and "ni" do have sensible, well-
defined semantics. I am not certain, however, that they have always been used
consistently with these as I have defined them.

2) "jei" is an oddball and needs careful looking at to see whether it even
belongs in NU.

3) In general, the semantics of NU is conclusively different from that of
jaiBAI (though they may be practically close in many cases)

4) Some of the NU relate to their root brivla via x1 and others via x2 -
unfortunate, but probably justified on the basis of both convenience and
history.

5) There is no reason to forbid negation and connection of NU, as it can be
expressed as negation and connection of the bridi in the VOI. It may not
often be useful, but I can think of, for example "za'ijenaimu'i"

6) There is a reasonable interpretation to be given to a generalised NU-
creator, ie
     xu'u selbri xou  bridi = su'u bridi [vau] fi'o ve skicu lo selbri
(assuming "xu'u selbri [xo'u]" is the generalised equivalent of NU)

eg the well known book entitled
le xu'u salpydizyfa'a ke nalmatma'e sutryjvi xo'u la .iecu'as. kuctra
selcatra

          co'omi'e kolin