[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 12:45:24PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On 3/26/07, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@hidden.email> wrote:
> >
> > da'i is a UI, so it should follow the same left-influencing behaviour
> > as any other free modifier, right?
>
> Yes (with the caveat for "left-influencing" that if the word to the left
> heads a construct, then the UI influences that construct, which will
> be to the right of the UI).
>
> > Now, consider what is going on here, in the CLL's sole example of da'i:
> >
> > ganai da'i do viska le mi citno mensi gi ju'o do djuno le du'u ri pazvau
> >
> > | | GA: ga
> > | | NAI: nai
> > | UI: da'i
> > |- sentence
> > | | GI: gi
> > | UI: ju'o
> > |- sentence
> >
> > See where the da'i ends up in the tree?
>
> It should modify the first "sentence", and ju'o the second one.
That is what we would like for it to do. But which rules support this interpretation? Wouldn't it be better if we put the da'i directly after "ga" if we wanted this?
> > Now, even assuming that the semantic effect of da'i can reach back
> > through both the NAIClause and the gek (which is quite a stretch),
> > what is it supposed to be doing to the gekSentence? I thought it was
> > the _antecedent_ that was supposed to be marked as counterfactual,
> > not the implication in its entirety!
>
> I think da'i is indeed marking the antecedent, since GANAI and GI are
> at the same level, so GANAI couldn't really be taken as heading the whole
> gek-sentence.
Good point.
> But I don't really understand what difference da'i and da'inai are meant
> to signal in the CLL examples. They seem to be a ba/pu distinction rather
> than a da'i/da'inai one:
>
> If you were to see my younger sister,
> you would certainly know she is pregnant.
>
> If you saw my younger sister,
> you would certainly know she is pregnant.
Perhaps we should not look too closely at the actual English translations. Suppose, for instance that my younger sister died before you were born. Then you could not possibly have seen her, yet I can truthfully say that if you *had* been around (hypothetical viewpoint), then you would know she was pregnant. In this case, da'i nai would be inappropriate.
On the other hand, supposing that my younger sister is about as old as both you and I, and I know that you may very well have met her last week, then the da'i nai version is the most appropriate.
Actually, now that I think about it, the second (factual) translation might be an erratum. The straight implicational reading should say "you certainly know ...".
--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Hvis jeg *vil* skrive til *den* plassen i minnet, s� *skal* jeg skrive
til *den* plassen i minnet. Det er derfor jeg foretrekker assembler.
-- Ingulf Helland