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On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 11:14 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote: > Jorge Llambías, On 18/09/2012 03:01: > > > > le fe la q boris qa mrsbnxa li lkni fi la va dtca lo vo vndo ju plnako > > gsnake > > As for Boris' death, the likely thing is that the Germans rather than > > whoever, poison rather than whatever, using it they caused it. > > > > Though I'm not sure whether the two v's are evaluated independently or > > one under the other. > > le fe la q boris qa mrsbnxa li lkni fi la vi dtca lo vi vndo ju plnako > gsnake > > fi binds vi (ni'uki). I think it means that Germans using poison to kill > Boris is more likely than nonGermans using nonpoison to kill Boris. I'm still trying to grok v-/ni'uk- I'm not sure what you mean by "fi binds vi" because f- is not a binder, it doesn't close a formula wrt a variable. In "fi la vi dtca lo vi vndo ju plnako gsnake" the variable "i" is still free. Or maybe fi does bind the inner i, and simultaneoulsy introduces a new free i for li to bind? But in: > la je ckfa va mlka prfraka'a > I prefer my coffee milky (to not milky) there's no fa to bind va. The way I read the vo/va version is: lo vo vndo ju plnako gsnake Poison rather than whatever was used by A in doing E. la va dtca lo vo vndo ju plnako gsnake Germans rather than whoever used poison rather than whatever in doing E. li lkni fi la va dtca lo vo vndo ju plnako gsnake The likely situation is one in which Germans rather than whoever used poison rather than whatever in doing E. But since you get approximately the same reading with vi/vi instead of va/vo, I'm puzzled (again) about what the variable that goes with v- does. I suppose v- is a focus marker, and the reason you need the variable is because it's possible there may be more than one thing fighting for something focused, so "lkni" could be competing with something else for the focus and the -i ties it to lkni. So I propose that "ni'u" be the focus operator, and ni'ukV the marked focus that you may need in some extreme cases. For example, for: lo ni'u vndo ju plnako gsnake "Poison rather than whatever was used by A in doing E." we can't really use a variable because the thing that needs it is hidden in the implicit illocutionary operator: [ca lu xsra'aku fu] lo ni'u[ku] vndo ju plnako gsnake "[Hereby my assertion is that] it is poison rather than whatever that was used by A in doing E" la je frmra si xsli je pnsaki ni'u drxaki msta "Farmers that own some donkey and DO beat it are most." (most, that is, with respect to farmers that own some donkey whether they beat it or not). You could use "ni'uka" there for more precision, for "msta" to claim that focus, but I think it's unnecessary because there's nothing else competing for it. Does that sound half right? co ma'a xrxe