Re: A modest proposal #2: verdicality

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la dilyn cusku di'e
> This sounds good, although I'm still not sure {lo} must necessarily be
> verdical.  In some cases information must be inferred in the use of
> {lo}, as in your use of {lo cnino} I pointed out (unless that was a
> misuse); why not the meaning of the description?

Well, in that case it was veridical.  It's true that in the context it
seemed to refer to "a new cmavo" instead of just any "something new",
but I could get away with it filling appropriately the {zo'e} places.
(Although I admit I wasn't thinking of that when I wrote it.)

> {voi} must have been added since the "Places" paper was written.  Is
> there more to its use than just the one-sentence description in the
> cmavo list?

Not yet anyway. I think it was added precisely to have the analogous
to {poi} for {le}.

> In any case, {ro da voi broda} seems odd.  There's explicitly a
> quantifier there.  Does the {voi} cancel it in some way?

{ro da voi broda} is each of those broda I have in mind.
{[su'o] da voi broda} is at least one of those broda I have in mind.

Just like:

{ro da poi broda} is each of those that are broda.
{[su'o] da poi broda} is at least one of those that are broda.

> What's an example of when you'd want to do this?  That is, can you
> think of a context in which {le broda cu broda} isn't true in any
> sense whatsoever?  That would seem extremely strange to me.

Well, there is the classic example {le nanmu cu ninmu}, then it would be
true that {le nanmu na nanmu}, which means that {le nanmu cu nanmu} is
false.  We could argue ad nauseum about in which sense that is true or
false, but I'm not sure we'd get anywhere.  The point is that {le nanmu}
has a clear referent, and that referent doesn't satisfy the predicate
{nanmu}, but we keep using it to refer to it because at some point we
thought it did satisfy it.  (Or something.)

However, if you want to think that {le} is always veridical, I'm not
going to disagree with you, since that is the case except in a set of
measure zero anyway.  :)

[...]
> Hmm, I need to ponder this more.  There seem to be two uses of {poi}
> involved: subselection and definition (as with {da}).

It's always subselection. {da poi broda} subselects the brodas from
the unrestricted da.

> <ponder>
>
> OK, I think I understand now.  {poi} means subselection, while {noi},
> by providing more information, means definition (in an appropriate
> context, e.g., {da noi li'o} if {da} is going to be used again).  But
> if the variable {da} is not used again, the two are equivalent.

Not really.  {noi} is a comment, and can be taken out without changing
the quantification stuff.  {da noi broda} makes a claim about some {da},
and a second incidental claim that that {da} is also a broda, but the
truth of the {noi} claim is independent of the main clause, whereas with
{poi} it is crucial in order to understand what the main clause claims.

> So the equivalent of {le broda goi ko'a} might be {ko'a noi le broda},
> at least if {ko'a} is not already in use.

{noi} needs a selbri, not a sumti.  Otherwise, yes, they are similar,
although it wouldn't really be very clear.  The listener might wonder
whether by {ko'a} you mean something already assigned.

> So what does {voi} mean?  What's an example of its use?

It is useful to write things with {le} in prenex form:

        re le cribe dansu
        Two of the bears dance.

Can be rewritten as:

        re da voi cribe zo'u da dansu

Prenex notation is sometimes useful to understand the logic of complex
sentences.

Jorge



Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 17:05:04 EDT