Re: le/lo

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

And:
>I think {loi taksi} pretty much entails {su`o pa taksi}.

Well, I don't know in this particular case, but I can think of
other cases where it certainly doesn't. For example:

             le klaji cu culno loi plejykarce
             The street is full of taxis.

It is not the case that there is at least one taxi such that it
fills the street. It is the case that there are some taxis such
that they (en masse) fill the street.

 >> There's no problem either with:
>>
>>                             mi denpa tu'a lo plejykarce
>>                             "I'm waiting for something about a taxi."
>>
>> because the quantification is within the abstraction:
>
>Was that actually established? I don't remember that.

I think it was established that {tu'a lo plejykarce} meant
{le nu/du'u/ka/... lo plejykarce cu co'e}. If it wasn't then it
should, shouldn't it?

 >>              mi denpa le nu lo plejykarce ti klama
>>              "I wait for the event that there is a taxi that
>> comes here."
>
>That I think is an improvement, though I'm not too happy about
>the {le nu} bit. Which nu are you referring to?

 I don't know, events are tricky beasts. Currently I believe that
not all events happen, so that it is possible to wait for an event
that may or may not end up happening, just as you can want
an event to happen without saying that it will or won't.

>But {lo nu}
>would be no improvement, for it might be that the taxi will
>never come. Better would be "mi XXX zei denpa le du`u lo
>plejykarce....": "I wait for it to become the case that there
>is a taxi that arrives here".

Yes, perhaps that would be clearer, although I think it would
be too restrictive to say that nu could only refer to events that
actually happen.

>I say "XXX zei denpa", because "denpa", like virtually all other
>intentional gismu, is defined in a different, and ultimately
>illogical way. The only solution I can see, if the baseline is
>respected, is to abolish the use of these gismu and use
>alternative correctly-defined selbri instead.

Could you explain why they'd be ultimately illogical?
Is it still illogical if nu can be used to refer to any event,
whether it happens or not?

 >>                             mi sisku lo'e plejykarce
>>                             "I'm looking for a taxi."
>>
>>  I don't agree that the conclusion we reached was that
>> the right gadri to use was {loi}, either. I think that the correct one
>> is {lo'e}.
>
>I can't believe you're correct. This is partly because it seems to
>me that the solution must involve a subordinate clause, and
>partly because noone really has a clue what lo`e means. I know
>from experience that when we've discussed it before we basically
>sat around inventing candidate meanings for it. (Same for le`e.)

Well, this is the way I've been using lo'e for some time now.
The argument filled with lo'e is "curried" out (was that the term?)
and does not intervene in the quantification. {sisku lo'e plejykarce}
is like a new selbri meaning "x1 is taxi-searching". Sort of like a
lujvo, but more explicit. The new gismu list asks for a property in
the x2 place of sisku, though, so I'm using the old definition.
I wouldn't know how I would say "I'm looking for my hat"
with the new definition, if I wore one.

co'o mi'e xorxes