Re: Meaning of BAI tags

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

la kris cusku di'e
> I could see two possible interpretations of cu'u:
>
>           sy. tanru cu'u xorxes
>           1) S is a tanru, spoken by Jorge
>           2) S is a tanru, according to Jorge
>
>I think that's more than a doubt about the precise definition of cu'u, it's
a
> question about BAI tags in general.  The first option leaves the
> truth of the proposition in place and adds
>extra information; the second more fundamentally changes the
>meaning as if cu'u
> were actually the main verb and tanru were part of an abstraction
> (i.e. lenu sy. tanru kei se cusku xy.)

If by the first you mean that la xorxes cusku le tanru, then it can't
be, because there is no direct connection between the x1 of
the bridi and the cu'u place. Why would it not be la xorxes cusku
le se tanru, or le te tanru, etc? {le nu sy tanru kei se cusku xy} is
indeed the closest paraphrase. That's how it  works for all BAIs.
For example {broda ki'u ko'e} means {ko'e krinu le nu broda}.

>More examples:
>          sy. tanru va'o my.
>          1) S is a tanru, and the conditions surrounding the fact of its
> tanrueity are M
>          2) S is a tanru, at least under conditions M

Both seem to be {my vanbi le nu sy tanru}.

>          la .erik limna bai la rabyn.
>          1) Robin forces Erik to swim
>          2) *Robin forces that Erik would swim (somehow implying that
Robin
> forces,
>                        but Erik might not swim)

I don't understand exactly what you mean by 2). To me it means
{la rabyn bapli le nu la erik limna}. There's the usual question of
whether a person can be a bapli though.

>          la selbarna cu mlatu du'u la .and.
>          1) Spot is a cat; And knows that
>          2) Spot is the cat that And knows

Definitely 1). "The cat that And knows" is {le mlatu poi la and selbau},
nothing to do with djuno.

>The choice in all these cases is whether the interpretation could be such
that
> the main
>bridi wouldn't be true without the BAI tag.  The one with {bai} itself
seems
> unlikely, but the others...?

I think in many cases the bridi remains true, but it doesn't seem like
a general rule. For example, it wouldn't work with {ba'i}.

>I prefer the interpretation where {Prop BAI Sumti} implies {Prop}, but that
> would mean
>we have to be very careful with sentences like:
>
>       Sy. mlatu fi'o selje'u my.
> ...which under my proposal would mean:
>      1) S is a cat, and that's true under epistemology M
> ...but not:
>       2) S is considered a cat under epistemology M (but maybe not under
my own
> epist).

I think it has to mean 2), i.e. {my se jetnu le du'u sy mlatu}.

co'o mi'e xorxes