CLL heresies: Scope of "ko": Difference between revisions

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But wait, there's more! Scope-breaking '''ko''' also has another negative consequence:
But wait, there's more! Scope-breaking '''ko''' also has another negative consequence:


Under scope-breaking '''ko''', the very common construction '''ganai... gi ko...''', as in: '''ganai do gleki gi ko xanjalgau''' "If you're happy, clap your hands", can actually be obeyed not by performing the second clause (clapping), but by making the first clause not true.
Under scope-breaking '''ko''', the very common construction '''ganai... gi ko...''', as in: '''ganai do gleki gi ko xanjalgau''' "If you're happy, clap your hands", can actually be obeyed not by performing the second clause (clapping), but by making the first clause (being happy) not true.

Latest revision as of 08:46, 23 August 2015

Heresiarch: la zipcpi


Quoth CLL 7.2:

mi viska le prenu poi prami ko = Make “I see the person that loves you” true! / Be such that the person who loves you is seen by me! / Show me the person that loves you

In other words, if ko = do ko'oi, ko'oi scopes over the entire sentence.


"However", saith the heresiarch (and thus leadeth the Lojbanists into damnation):

I'm not sure ko'oi should scope over the entire sentence. Consider that ko'oi is meant to represent one of e'a, e'e, e'i, e'o, e'u. Also consider the magic brivla koinde, which is like minde but is more general, meant to represent anything one would use ko/the imperative mood for.

Consider:

mi viska le prenu poi prami do ko'oi

Should it expand to:

mi koinde do lo ka gau ce'u mi viska le prenu poi ke'a prami do, as CLL asserts, or:

mi viska le prenu poi mi koinde do lo ka ke'a prami ce'u, which roughly means "I see the person that I want you to be loved by"?


But why rocketh thou the boat?

The problem becomes obvious if you move ko'oi to attach to the poi-clause:

mi viska le prenu poi ko'oi prami do

And/or replace it with one of the more specific imperative attitudinals, e.g. e'u:

mi viska le prenu poi prami do e'u / mi viska le prenu poi e'u prami do

If e'u can't break scope outside the sub-bridi, why should ko'oi?

And why should ko have this scope-breaking magic just so one could look clever changing an entire sentence into a command by mutating a completely incidental do, when it's probably better to just use gau ko or prefix ko'oi? I can't use this magic for mi viska le nanmu poi prami la .tom. if I want to say "Show me the person that loves Tom" anyway; I'd have to actually use gau ko or ko'oi in this case.

Additionally, gau [ko'a] or some other predicate like visygau or arco would be needed anyway if I want to say something like "Tom shows me the person that loves you", which "should" be a simple replacement of the "subject" of the sentence.


But wait, there's more! Scope-breaking ko also has another negative consequence:

Under scope-breaking ko, the very common construction ganai... gi ko..., as in: ganai do gleki gi ko xanjalgau "If you're happy, clap your hands", can actually be obeyed not by performing the second clause (clapping), but by making the first clause (being happy) not true.