Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> > > > > > > How would you say "the mothers of Jorge and And"?
> > > > > > Perhaps {lei mamta be la xorxes a la and}.
> > > > > That could refer to just your mum.
> > > > Yes, you'd have to rely on the specificity of {lei}.
> > > I.e. an actually-nonveridical usage. I see.
> > No! A veridical usage: "The mass of those who are mothers of you or me."
> You're right of course. I hadn't noticed the change of .e to .a.
> I could change the example to "siblings of Jorge and And" (nonspecific
> "siblings") to make the point that the problem remains (not that you
> suggested otherwise).

If you want each of them, then {ro lo tunba be la xorxes a la and} works.

If you want some of them, but making sure that there is at least one of
yours and one of mine, then I don't think you can do it with a single
"tunba", but neither does your xo'u solve that "problem".

> > > > > Ax, x is a member of {Xorxe, And}: I met the mother of x.
> > > > >    I met lo mamta be xohu ro luha luhi la xorxes ce la and
> > What I had understood before was that {xo'u} lets you jump from one
> > prenex (the one in the embedded clause) to another (the one in the
> > outside clause).
> Well if that were the case, the issue would still arise of where in the
> higher prenex you jump to - the start of the prenex so far, or the end
> of the prenex so far. My version - "jump to the start of the highest
> prenex" generalizes one of those two solutions.

Well, I think that the normal thing would be to the end of the higher
prenex so far. (Next outer prenex or outermost? I think next outer makes
more sense, but since I'm really not in favour of xo'u I don't care much.)

"Jump to the start of the highest prenex" has undesirable effects.
For example:

        ro prenu cu djuno le du'u da prami py
        Every person knows that someone loves them.
        (But they may not know who that someone is.)

        ro prenu cu djuno le du'u xo'u da prami py
        For every person, there is somone that they know loves them.

But you want it to mean:

        There is someone such that every person knows that they
        are loved by that someone.

I find the first interpretation much more coherent with how
quantification works in general.

> You, as a lover of flexibility, should surely appreciate such a cmavo.

I think it brings more confusion than anything else. I don't even want
to consider what rules to use when a second xo'u appears.


> "I like the house having a colour". The solution
> could simply be to make x2 of skari specific. Use {keha} or {le cohe}
> or something:
>   mi se pluka le nu le zdani cu skari le cohe
>   mi se pluka le ka keha skari le cohe kei be le zdani
>
> "I like it that the house has that colour".

That works only because the se pluka coincides with the speaker. Let me
change to "she likes what colour the house has", which would be
{ko'a se pluka le nu le zdani cu skari makau}. The speaker doesn't
know the colour of the house, so I don't think {le co'e} would be right
there.

Jorge