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On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Jordan DeLong wrote: > On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 06:49:37PM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote: > > On Sun, 15 Dec 2002, Jordan DeLong wrote: > > > On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 03:30:44AM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote: > > > > On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Jordan DeLong wrote: > > > > > On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 06:17:36PM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote: > > > > > > Book says explicitly that ti is only used for finger pointables; I need > > > > > > something abstract. > > > > > > > > > > Not sure what you mean by "something abstract". But it's usable > > > > > for anything which has distance from the speaker (conceptually). > > > > > The book goes out of its way to say that you don't need to be > > > > > face-to-face for this to work. All the "finger pointing" stuff is > > > > > just a metaphor. > > > > > > > > "...they cannot refer to things that cannot be pointed at." > > > > > > "In written text, on the other > > > hand, the meaning of the ti-series is inherently vague; is the writer to be > > > taken as pointing to something, and if so, to what? In all cases, what counts > > > as ``near'' and ``far away'' is relative to the current situation." > > > > There is no way you can possibly misinterpret the above to mean that ti > > can refer to unpointable things in the way that ko'a or da can. > > This "pointing" stuff is just a metaphor---stop paying so much > attention to it. ti/ta/tu can represent anything which has a > (conceptual or real) distance from the speaker, or the spoken-to. Ah, so you think I can refer to my birth as being "tu" from me, because it was a long time ago. Or that I can refer to cigarette smoking as "tu" from me, because since I hate it, it is conceptually "far" from me. I don't know why you think ti can do this, I know you didn't get this from the book -- I keep going back to the chapter to see what might have led you astray or what I might have forgotten -- I think you're now arguing for its own sake and I have nothing left to repeat on the topic. -- jipno se kerlo re mei re mei degji kakne