Re: modals tagging selbri question...

["Jorge J. Llambias" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

la trevyr cusku di'e

> 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...

Yes, according to the reference grammar, "ka'e" has to do with _innate_
capability. I don't think this agrees with actual usage, so either
the grammar is being too restrictive, or we have been using it wrong.
Besides, the grammar only gives examples of sentences with single sumti,
which doesn't help to figure out what happens when there is more than
one sumti.

> 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

Yes, that would certainly be right.

> 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."

How do you come to that? To me it means something very close to "I can
eat". Something like "I possibly eat", or "It is possible that I eat",
but let's look at another example:

        mi ka'e citka le plise

This obviously cannot just mean:

        mi kakne le nu citka le plise
        I am capable of eating the apple.

because, since there is no reason to prefer the x1 sumti, it could
in that case just as well mean:

        le plise cu kakne le nu se citka mi
        The apple is capable of being eaten by me.

So "mi ka'e citka le plise" simply means that it is possible
that I eat the apple. Not a property of just "mi" or just of
"le plise", but a property of both. The property that the
relationship "citka" is possible between them. This agrees with
these things being called "modals". According to my Webster's,
modality is "the classification of logical propositions according
to their asserting or denying the possibility, impossibility,
contingency, or necessity of their content". So, we have:

ka'e            possibility
na ka'e         impossibility
ka'e na         contingency
na ka'e na      necessity

Also "ca'a" seems to mean "na ka'e na", which also gives us:

ca'a            necessity
na ca'a         contingency
ca'a na         impossibility
na ca'a na      possibility

> -- 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" ??

Yes, definitely.

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

I think "ka'e" and "ca'a" mean the above, which makes them pure
modals. I don't think they are restricted to innate possibility,
at least not in how they've actually been used.

"pu'i" and "nu'o" seem to have tense information mixed in, because
they also refer to the previous history of the sumti, so I'm
not sure whether they can be called pure modals.

Anyway, that's my current understanding of the situation.

co'o mi'e xorxes