Re: GEN + TEXT:INT - phone communications

["(Logical Language Group)" <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

to/toi is used for any kind of parenthetical note.  Because it can take
any grammatical text, it tends to be used for lengthy parentheses, and for
notes or addenda on the text.

sei/se'u is used only for metalinguistic comments on the text, which is not
nearly as broad a category as any comment whatsoever.  One can think of
sei/se'u as the editorial brackets thatr sometimes appear in quoted text,
surrounding "sic".  sei/se'u allows for indefinite expansion of discursives,
to which the construct is related (and indirectly to attitudinals). Because
sei/se'u constructs are limited to an SOV sentence or a bare selbri, it can
be more readily inserted in a sentence without worrying about remembering to
terminate it - the se'u is almost always elidable.  The two major reasons they
were added were for editorial 'unquote' for inserting paraphrases inside a
quotation where some text is omitted editorially (the editorial bracket []
is usually used here in American text), and for the similar 'drop out of quote'
used in literary conversation reporting:

"The window
"The window", she said, pointing down the hall, "is open".  We found this
stylistic pattern in Saki's "Open Window", and upon investigation found that
many languages allow sentences in quotes to be broken up like this to insert
the "he said/she said", and metalinguistic comments, in the middle.
The other reason for for pure metalinguistic comments that are difficult to
convey in any other way.  The use of dei in a sei/se'u construct is
metalinguitic reference to the current utterance NOT INCLUDING the metalin-
guistic parenthetical.

lojbab