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Xorxes:
> >Which reminds me, so-called "bound ka" privileges one particular
> >sumti too, and binds it to a higher sumti. So the logic of the
> >previous paragraph is that where a sumti can only be a single-
> >ce'u ka (= property) and not a many-ce'u ka (= relation), and
> >when the ce'u is bound to a sister sumti of the ka sumti, then
> >{ke'a} should be used instead of {ce'u}.
>
> It might be argued that the binding in those cases is more semantic
> than syntactic. In the case of poi/poi'i the binding can be read
> off from the syntactic structure. In the case of ka, it is only
> the sense of the selbri that creates the binding. But it is an
> interesting idea nontheless.
This is reasonable.
> >So arguably:
> >
> > la djan frica la meris lo'edu'u ke'a dunda fi makau
> > John differs from Mary in who they give to.
>
>
> That's what I used when {ce'u} had not been invented.
Right. I was opposed to ce'u at the time, thinking it was redundant,
but I was wrong, of course (-- given the initial message in this
thread).
> >or even
> >
> > la djan frica la meris lo'edu'u ke'a dunda fi ce'u
> > John differs from Mary in who they give to.
>
> I don't like this one. For me the completion provided by {kau}
> is necessary. Besides, you couldn't do:
>
> la djan frica la meris lo'edu'u ce'u dunda xokau da
> John differs from Mary in how many things they give.
la djan frica la meris lo'edu'u ke'a dunda mo'e ce'u da
-- after all, in logical form there aren't different sorts of
variables.
I'm happy to accept Qkau as a convenience, but it bugs me that it's
the basic device. Given my views that 'indirect questions' (i.e.
what is expressed by Qkau) are basic, and direct questions are
derived, and given your and pc's discovery (which I was eventually
convinced by) that an indirect question is the set of (true)
completions to an incomplete proposition, it seems to me that
we should have a way of expressing this underlying logic in
a relatively transparent way (even if Qkau is also there as a
perhaps more convenient alternative).
What is the difference between an incomplete proposition like
"___ klama" or "___1 klama ___2" and a property or relation like
"ce'u klama" and "ce'u klama ce'u"? I don't know. I don't know
whether there is a difference.
Anyway, returning to the frica example, I would like to find a
way to say it that expresses the underlying logic, instead of
relying on Qkau. I doubt that my ke'a+ce'u suggestion is what
we're looking for, though.
> >I'm conscious that people other than Xorxes might not get
> >what I'm on about here, but fatigue prevents me from essaying
> >a longer explantion tonight -- but I will do so another day
> >if asked.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Hopefully the above will show the path along which my thought
is tending...
--And.