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Lojbab:
> At 02:50 PM 1/5/03 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> >la lojbab cusku di'e
> > >This is why I introduced da'a (which BTW I think should be used
> > >instead of me'iro, which flashed by my screen in the last couple of days in
> > >some context)
> >
> >Is {da'a} by itself {da'apa} or {da'asu'o}? The latter is
> >indeed equivalent to {me'iro}
>
> It is elliptical in the same way that all of the other omitted words are
> elliptical. When we specify a "default", we are doing what I think And
> called "short-circuiting Grice" - setting up an assumption that allows
> people with insufficient language and culture knowledge, or insufficient
> context can start with in trying to figure out what is meant. We specify
> these defaults in order to suggest usage too: by specifying a default
> outer quantifier of "pisu'o" on loi, we suggest pitu'o is a proper form for
> a quantifier in that position, so we are less likely to see people trying
> to talk about multiple masses
>
> In other situations, we do not specify the Gricean default, though there is
> one. Lojban is officially tense optional, but in most cases, omitting a
> tense means present tense, so we could say that the default tense is
> "present". We did NOT do so, because that would confirm for English
> speakers precisely the wrong message: that non-present is marked and
> present is unmarked. But there ARE no instincts for the articles since
> they do not correspond exactly to anything in English
You seem to have succeeded in sending out just such a precisely the
wrong message in the case of gadri, at least to the handful of people
who know Lojban well enough to know what the defaults are prescribed
as.
> I suspect that defining the gadri well would eliminate the need to specify
> a default, which in turn would render the question moot
No. The situation will remain that we are faced with the choice of
defining the elliptized position that could contain X or Y either
as filled by whichever of X or Y is the more often called for, or
as a zo'e, to be glorked from context.
--And.