each of us must bring their own toothbrush

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denci lumci tutci sevzi bo sabji

(That's not cutting the Gordian knot, that's running it through a paper shredder!)


Solved problem; see The Book, Chapter 16, example 5.7:

  • ro da poi me ma'a zo'u: da bilga lenu bevri le denci lumci tutci po da

reducing to

  • ro da po'u ma'a bilga lenu bevri le da denci lumci tutci

but not

  • ro ma'a bilga lenu bevri le ma'a denci lumci tutci

and not

  • ro ma'a bilga lenu bevri le ri denci lumci tutci

-- nitcion

I disagree. I think those last two are a nice and concise way of saying what we want. In addition, you can add:

  • ro ma'a bilga le nu bevri le vo'a denci lumci tutci

-- Adam

And here we come to the crux of the problem. Does an anaphor repeat its antecedent's number? I don't see how it can't. And it's not the toothbrush pe ro ma'a -- nitcion.

Why should it repeat the number? It works just like "da":

  • ro da cu bilga le nu bevri le da tutci
  • ro ma'a cu bilga le nu bevri le vo'a tutci

I have no idea what kind of distinction you're trying to make between "le denci lumci tutci pe mi" and "le denci lumci tutci po mi". I don't know about you, but I don't use other people's toothbrushes. -- Adam

  • Ah, but Adam, you have to be explicit, and not hide behind vo'a. Can you say ro ma'a cu bilga le nu bevri le ma'a tutci? (You imply so in your first response.) And if not, and this means something different from ro ma'a cu bilga le nu bevri le vo'a tutci, how is it different?
    • Yes, ma'a would mean the same thing. I used vo'a because it's more general, and because there is a tiny possibility that I might be refering to a different ma'a, but it's highly unlikely.
  • If we start introducing real-life context into this, we give up on rigour. Plausibility would also allow us to drop all our terminators; that doesn't mean we should. You may not use other people's toothbrushes, but you should be able to say that you do. So that particular objection is bogus. (But the distinction I'm appealing to, in any case, isn't pe/po, it's mi/ma'a.)
    • If there's no distinction to make (and there probably isn't in this case), then pe and po are equally correct. When there's a contrast, you can use pe and po (or you could use a paraphrase for po). At any rate, there's no distinction as far as we can tell in this case, so there's no need to be over specific.
  • Can le mi'o panzi be the offspring of us, jointly, or our respective offspring, or both depending on context? I guess I'm interpreting mi'o as only mi joi do. I'm reticent, in any case, to believe that mi'o (or for that matter vo'a) operates just like da, and drops the quantification on anaphoric use.
    • mi'o can be either mi joi do or mi .e do (to disambiguate I would say quantify it with piro or ro, respectively). So let's say that there are two referents of the sumti (a and b). With mi joi do: Both a and b are offspring of both of us jointly. With mi .e do: More complicated, but I think it means that: a is the offspring of mi and a is the offspring of do and b is the offspring of mi and b is the offspring of do. Of course, in this case there's not much of a difference between being an offspring both x and y individually as opposed to jointly, but there would be differences in other cases.
  • This is probably messy enough to take to the list, no? -- nitcion
    • If you want, but I think we recently agreed there that you're wrong about the vo'a issue. :)
    • *smile* Different vo'a issue, of course, and I was really only doing devil's advocate anyway...
  • le mi'o panzi
    • First, I protest your malglico use of an implicit pe. If you mean le panzi be mi'o, please say that.
      • *shrug* To my mind, le mi'o panzi is completely and utterly the same thing as le panzi pe mi'o, so just assume I said that.
        • I meant using pe (implicit or not) instead of be when you mean be.

  • ei ro da po'u ma'a bevri le da denci lumci burcu

'

  • ro ma'a goi ko'a bevri lo ko'a denci lumci tutci (ignoring the bilga because I can't be bothered to look up the place structure) --And Rosta
    • What does assigning a ko'a add? --Adam
    • ko'a is assigned separately to each member of ma'a. In contrast, an ordinary anaphoric reference with ro ma'a as antecedent will requantifiy over the members of ma'a (according to xorxes and me).
      • But you didn't requantify ko'a. ro ko'a would requantify over the members of ko'a also.