Re: Place structures with {co}

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

la kolin. pu cusku di'e

> > I cannot think of a way of inverting
> > broda brode da
> > as you are trying to do.
> >
> > brode co broda da
> > expressly means
> > broda be da co brode

la xorxes. cusku di'e

> I guess you mean
> broda be da brode

I am making the same assumption.

> This is not the idea that I get from looking at the BNF,
> which has the trailing sumti attaching to the whole bridi,
>
>         brode co broda da
>
> parses as:
>
>         ({brode co broda} {da VAU})
>
> Which suggests to me something different from:
>
>         ({brode co <broda [be da BE'O]>} VAU)

Looking at the BNF isn't a safe strategy for determining the semantics
in general, but it happens to work in this case.

> If {brode co broda da} doesn't mean {broda brode da}, then
> the claim that {co} is there to permit the modifier to come
> after the modificand (is this the right word?),

Yes.

> as in some
> languages (like Spanish :) is not quite true, because using
> it restricts what we can say with that tanru. (A lot of places
> become inaccessible, unless used before the selbri.)
>
> So {broda brode} has a different place structure
> than {brode co broda}. (If a tanru can be said to have a
> place structure.)

No, the place structure of every tanru, whether involving "co" or not,
is the place structure of the last brivla.  Indeed, the whole point of "co"
is to expose the places of a non-final brivla and make them top-level, as in:

        mi troci co klama le zarci
        I am a trier of-type goer to-the market.
        I try to go to the market.

"Trying to go" in Lojban is "klama troci", because it is a going kind of
trying rather than a trying kind of going (if the going fails, then the event is
still a trying even though not a going).  However, the interesting places
in this case are those of "klama", not "troci".  Hence "troci co klama",
in order to avoid:

        mi klama be le zarci be'o troci
        I am-a-(goer to the market) type-of trier.

which is equivalent and correct, but clumsier.

What is the case about "co" is that it can only invert the top-level
modifier-modificand pair (or pairs -- multiple instances of "co" are right-
grouping), because "ke...ke'e" grouping cannot contain a "co".
For more detail, see my "Pretty Little Girls' School" paper at
<ftp://ftp.cs.yale.edu/pub/lojban/draft/refgrammar/plgs>.

> I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it's a bit strange.

Happily for you, it is wrong, though.

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.