voi

From Lojban
Revision as of 11:27, 20 May 2016 by Gleki (talk | contribs) (→‎Why there is no pe/ne distinction for voi?)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

voi is a prefix for non-veridical relative clause.

voi [NOI] particle: non-veridical relative clause introducer

voi serves to introduce a kind of relative clause. Relative clauses introduced by voi are restrictive, like those introduced by poi. However, there is a fundamental difference between poi and voi relative clauses. A poi relative clause is said to be veridical, in the same sense that a description using lo or loi is: it is essential to the interpretation that the bridi actually be true. For example:

le gerku poi blabi cu bajra i le gerku poi blabi cu vreta
The dog that is white runs. The dog that is white is lying.

Here we have two dogs. In order to refer to the second dog that was described as "lying" we can use voi:

le gerku voi bajra cu sanli
The dog that I described as running stands.

This puts the listener on notice that the dog in question may not actually meet objective standards for running (e.g. it might not be running now): only the context, the dialogue and the discourse (determined by speaker's and possibly listener's intention) that the members of the dialogue create determine exactly what is meant by the term. In this way, voi is like le; the intention of the members of the dialogue determines the meaning.

However,

le gerku poi bajra cu sanli
The dog that runs stands.

implies that the dog runs, or the sentence constitutes a miscommunication and the listener will not understand the situation correctly.

Why there is no poi/noi distinction for voi?

voi acts restrictively like poi but refers to the current discourse (determined by speaker's and possibly listener's intention), thus everything alredy in the discourse by the time voi is used is already restrictive:

i mi ralte pa danlu noi gerku i mi nelci pa jmive voi gerku
I keep one animal, which is a dog. I like one live being that is that dog mentioned.

Hence, there is no noi equivalent.

Why there is no pe/ne distinction for voi?

  • pe is restrictive like poi and approximately means poi co'e
  • ne is non-restrictive like noi and approximately means noi co'e

However, voi co'e wouldn't make sense since one cannot decide what is this co'e referred to by voi. This co'e can be any relation implied from the discourse!

Note that pe le broda and ne le broda are quite useful, and le here refers to broda in the discourse.