[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>
> la xod cusku di'e
>
> >Nobody complains about {da gerku}, da taking its meaning from its
> >position.
>
> {da gerku} is equivalent to {su'o da zo'u da gerku}, "for at
> least one x, x is a dog". Here {da} ranges over everything,
> and the claim is that some of the values (at least one) give
> a true claim. What meaning does {da} take here from its
> position?
Because if I then say {mi ba'o tikpa da}, my listeners are horrified.
That's because da has been assigned a meaning, even though no poi was
used.
> >But people complain about {ko'a gerku}, if ko'a wasn't already
> >specified, instead of relaxing and treating it the same way as da.
>
> {ko'a gerku} is fine as far as I can tell. It mean's "it's a dog".
> {ko'a} has a referent that the speaker knows. If the listener
> does not know what {ko'a} refers to, this sentence might help
> them to figure it out (they can restrict the possibilities
> to dogs), but by itself it is not enough. The listener can't
> choose any dog and decide that that dog is ko'a, because the
> speaker might be using {ko'a} to refer to some other dog.
Same with da.
> If the listener can't figure it out and needs to know, they may ask for
> clarification with {ko'a ki'a}. The same thing happens in English. If
> someone says "it's a dog" and you can't tell what "it" refers to, you
> ask "_what_ is a dog?". On the other hand, {da gerku}, "something is a
> dog", does not require the identification of any dog.
It doesn't require it, but it doesn't forbid it either, and da is often
used to refer to specific entities that the speaker has in mind, and of
which the speaker wants to assert the existence, and wants to assign a
variable.
Also, ko'a can be introduced by a speaker that does not actually know
which dog it refers to.
--
jipno se kerlo
re mei re mei degji kakne