Re: how to say

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

la frank. cults. cusku di'e

> pa'o is a FAhA derived from pagre. I know fi'o converts a gismu
> into a BAI. Is there a cmavo to convert gismu to FAhA?

Formally, no.  However, BAI can do anything FAhA can (except participate in the
construction of complex tenses), so "fi'o" effectively does the job.

> Does
>         mi catlu fi'o canko ku le canko
> have the right semantics? Probably not. Can predications take place within
> windows? Again, ku is probably not the right terminator for fi'o.

Well, that says "I look-at [something] with-window the window", and sounds
a tad redundant, but it isn't formally incorrect, except for the "ku";
the delimiter for "fi'o" is "fe'u", which can be elided here.  You can
also say:

        mi catlu fi'o canko [fe'u] [ku]

which has both "fe'u" (terminating "fi'o") and "ku" (which is used when
no sumti follows), both elidable here by the end-of-text.

But what all these versions lose is that seeing is done >through< the window;
the window is involved in the seeing in some way, but what way is simply not
given.  This is inherent in the nature of modal places -- we don't really
know, and have to infer, how the modal place fits in.  In the paradigm
sentence

        mi viska do fi'o kanla ti
        I see you with-eye this-thing.
        I see you with this eye.

which would be appropriate for someone who (unknown to the listener) is
blind in one eye, it is only real-world knowledge that informs us of the
function of the eye in seeing.

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.