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On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, And Rosta wrote:
> xod:
> > > >> The "fill in a blank here" box does have a colour; it's just
> > > >> unspecified and uninstantiated. There's no na'i about it
> > > > Very interesting use of {kau}! Can you explain the {nai} there?
> > > > I would have just used {makau} for "whatever colour"
> > >
> > > kaunai means that the value is not known, and not instantiated; but is
> > > known to exist and be unique {da}. Is it odd to use {kau} like that?
> > > When we say {da kau go'i}, we say that the value is known and is
> > > instantiated, but just isn't communicated. When you're asking for a box,
> > > you know that whatever box satisfies the request will be a specific,
> > > concrete box, and so will have a colour. What colour that will be, noone
> > > knows yet; it is, after all, intensionally defined. When you know who
> > > killed the butler (kauja'ai), OTOH, there's nothing intensional and
> > > fluffy there: the killer of the butler has a denotation known to at
> > > least one person
> >
> > Watch it! You're trying to give kau a sane and consistent meaning. Which,
> > of course, collides with the way Jorge and his disciples use it. For
> > instance, in that case, makau would mean "I know the value, but I want you
> > to tell me anyway"
>
> If anybody can think of a sane and consistent meaning for kau that is
> also consistent with usage, please explain it to me!
What Nick suggested is sane, and kind of goes along with most of the
usage, but the analysis, once made explicit, will make some howl.
Nick's usage makes kau really a UI, just a symbol that means "I know the
value of what came before this kau". What came before maintains its
meaning, be it da or ma, and kau is similar to bi'unai. I can deal with
this.
But in the current usage, kau nullifies the meaning of what came before
it, turning the cmavo + kau construction into something similar to a ko'a,
but which receives its meaning positionally instead of from goi. This is a
hack generally used to get around the fact that we have no way to abstract
out the *identity* of a sumti. Then in other cases, kau is bound to xu as
a clumsy way to say "jei".
--
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.