modals tagging selbri question...

[Trevor Hill <trevor@AMON-RA.RES.CMU.EDU>]

coi rodo... :)  I have been wondering about those modal things for a while
now, as they're not really very well explained (imho) in the reference
grammar...  anyway, could someone help me figure these out??

so...  what if i want to say, "I can eat."

The clearest way i know of to express this is:

.i mi kakne le nu citka vau

But it seems to be implied in the explanations of modals that i can say

.i mi ka'e citka vau

and have it mean "I can eat." -- this doesn't seem right to me.  This
seems to express "I (able)ly eat." -- so what about...

.i mi citkyka'e vau

using zo ka'e as the rafsi for zo kakne....  Does this mean (in the
probable interpretation) "I can eat" ??


My main question is with regard to the modals -- what do they actually
mean when used with a selbri...?  Any help greatly appreciated... :)


And thanks to those who've replied to explain things to me before... it
helped quite a bit... :)



Trevor C. Hill
th2x+@andrew.cmu.edu