Converse of tu'a/ demonstratives

[Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>]

Thus lojbab:
+++++++>
 Actually, I've been arguing with myself whether we have in Lojban the
inverse of "tu'a" - something that metonymizes a sumti out to a selbri, with
the grammar of the latter.  This may indeed be what "me" really is, but as
defined, we tend to think of it as the inverse  of "le".  One would normally
think that the result of an inverse to "tu'a" would be an abstraction, of the
level of "su'u".  But then how does an abstraction differ from a concrete
in Lojban, once you hide the structure of the 'inside predication'.

So I'm undecided whether this is covered or not by "me", and not going to
argue for it since I obviously can't think of anythink like it in natlangs.
>++++++++

I'm a little confused. "tu'a" maps from sumti to sumti, and forces +abstract.
A converse to that would take a +abstract sumti and deliver an implied
sumti (+/-abstract unspecified).
Using "xu'a" for it, I think
        xu'a ko'a
would mean
        da poi ko'a cu su'u ke'a co'e

I could think of cases where you could use this, such as

        mi viska xu'a le rinka

but I don't really think it's needed because
1) Most +abstract sumti are explicit abstractions (we can say
'le rinka', but we don't very often do so)
2) The caco'a cnano lujvo with (eg) -gau do the job better.

I don't however see what this has got to do with your takoi.

On a formal level "me" is indeed a converse of "le" in that it
maps from sumti to selbri. I suspect that the subjectivity of
both means that they are semantically converse too. (In a
sense, the converse of 'lo' is 'du'!)

I think the problem of your demonstratives is not grammatical, but
the uncertainty as to what is the object of the deixis and whether
ti/ta/tu can usefully point to it.


+++++++>
I think we could use a ti/ta distinction; tu seems less important, but I
would take it if there was support for all three.  I don't know any languages
with 3 way demonstrative distinction to know whether they have 3 way predicate
demonstratives as well.
>++++++
Japanese has the three-way distinction, and a wide range of derivatives.
In particular, 'koo', 'soo', 'aa' are 'in this way', 'in that way', in yonder
 way'.


        Colin