More about scopes

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

Continuing with the joys of quantifier scopes...


(1)     le ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe
        Each of the three men carries one box.

No problem there. Each one has his own box.


(2)     lei ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe
        The three men (as one entity) carry one box.

Again no problem. They are all carrying it together.


(3)     le ci nanmu cu bevri le pa tanxe
        Each of the three men carries the one box.

Again no problem. (1) describes three separate events, possibly
with three different boxes. (3) also describes three events,
this time with the same box. They may take turns to carry it.

My problem comes with this one:

(4)     le ci nanmu cu bevri pa tanxe goi ko'a
        Each of the three men carries it, one box.

This is very different from (1), because now they are all carrying the
same box.  Otherwise, when we next refer to ko'a we wouldn't know which
box it was!

My conclusion is that {goi} forces the scope of {pa} in this case to be
wider than that of {ro le ci nanmu}.  Am I right?

Jorge