Re: Problems with Abstraction

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

John:
> Lee Daniel Crocker (none) wrote:

[Why (none)? Is that something your software does?]

> > The refgram makes sense and is reasonably clear on this point, but I
> > do see {ka} and {ni} used (by myself, too) as if there were a semi-
> > implied {ce'u} or {makau} in the first omitted place.
>
> Perfectly OK.  An omitted place means whatever the speaker intends
> it to mean, and if the intent is to mean "ce'u", then that's what
> it means.  "ce'u" was put into the language to allow the existing
> usage (omitted place) to be made explicit.

Is it really that simple? Suppose you fill an omitted place with
a variable bound by a quantifier. Can that quantifier than have
any scope at all over the rest of the sentence? For example,
can {mi na citka} mean "Not everything is eaten by me", or
"Everything is uneaten by me"? It seems to me that in practise
we restrict ourselves to a much narrower range of interpretations.

Also, is an omitted sumti understood as an unexpressed logical
argument, or as an "unspoken word"? The latter wd be analogous
to the way "ma" asks for a replacing word.

--And