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xorxes: > --- John Cowan <cowan@hidden.email> wrote: > > And Rosta scripsit: > > > > > That is the question. Does unbound ko'a take a referent glorked from > > > context, or does it produce meaningless sentences. > > > > The traditional view is that the referent is glorked, and I see no reason > > to change this. People who don't like using ko'a that way shouldn't use it. > > There are many, many other forms (le-descriptors being the obvious one) > > whose referents must be glorked, after all. > > Perhaps the reason for being unconfortable with unbound ko'a is its rarity > in usage. There are usually so many more precise alternatives that > using unbound ko'a is almost equivalent to using nothing/zo'e. In fact, > is there a difference between zo'e and a single instance of unbound ko'a? > Does unbound ko'a need to refer to something already mentioned? In the interpretation process, zo'e can be replaced by any sumti, including da and (but let's not rehash this one) zi'o. Ko'a does not get replaced during the interpretation process; it just gets a referent assigned, either through assigned coreference or through glorking. If unbound ko'a is rare in usage, that is only because my usage is itself rare, for I formerly used unbound ko'a a lot, relative to my meagre usage. I nowadays prefer {le du}, but only because unbound ko'a unnecessarily obliges the hearer to search their memory to try to remember whether ko'a has in fact been bound already, and also because the use of ko'a implies that the ko'a will recur with the same referent in the text. --And.