*old response to Colin Fine on re xirma

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

        colin@kindness.demon.co.uk>
>The level of structure I'm talking about is that of (grammatical)
>category.  In English (and Chinese) a word or phrase can often function
>as several different grammatical categories.  In Finnish it usually
>cannot, because its form defines its category.  In Lojban we have
>invariable words, but clearly defined categories:  'xirma' is a brivla;
>it can therefore function as a selbri, or a bridi, or indeed a jufra.
>It cannot be a sumti - it needs an explicit converter, normally a gadri.
>Now my objection to 're xirma' is that a laivla (quantifier word) is
>being used as this converter.  Clearly it can be made to work because it
>has been; but in my view it's a kludge, in large part because it means
>'re lo xirma' and that 'lo' is part of the skeleton of the phrase.  (The
>presence of 'le re xirma' complicates the issue further)

I think the equivalence of re xirma and re lo xirma has come under
considerable question during the last 1 1/2 years, and my own curren
belief is that it represents something orthogonal to both le and lo and
therefore is ambiguous between re lo xirma and re le xirma, while having
additional connotations.  Off the top of my head, the last time I
analyzed this I was in favor of re xirma being +specific +|- veridical
+|- definite, where lo is + veridical, ambivalent on the other two with
a tendency towards -specific in usage and maybe also by definition, and
le is + specific and + definite, and ambivalent on veridicality.

But I could be remembering incorrectly/reanalyzing this.  Rather than
restart the debate, I am just cc:ing Cowan and pc, who may have a better
idea where this analysis stands (and more important:  what Cowan has
written in the refgrammar).

lojbab