Re: misc responses to Jorge from last month, esp. SEI

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

la lojbab cusku di'e:
> Since "sei" is a marker of metalinguistic comment, I am inclined to use
> a default "dei", or "di'u" depending on context as a default for an
> unspecified x1 or other significant sumti.  Alternatively within a
> sentence, it could be a reference to the marked grammatical construct
> within the sentence.  I would probably NOT interpret sei to be a comment
> about la'edei or la'edi'u unless it were made explicit.  That seems more
> likely to be the type of thing one would mark with a normal
> parenthetical to/toi.

I agree. Metalinguistic comments are about {dei} (and thereby possibly
about {mi}, {do}, etc.).

The test for this can be seen most clearly in subordinate bridi, as
described in my recent reply to ivAn. With the meaning Jorge wished
sei to have, he'd have wanted it to hold in subordinate bridi too,
but it wouldnt.

> If the x1 is generally agentive, I tend to agree with Chris that the
> presumption is speaker point-of-view, unless there is contravening
> context (in stories, for example, I think we developed a convention
> whereby the speaker is empathically identifying with some character in
> the story - in reported conversation, it might on the other hand be
> attempting to report the attitudes of the speakers in the conversations.

I think such story contexts should be left in the realm of pragmatics.

> So the metalinguistic occurance (the utterance?) is what is happening
> repeatedly, and not the thing referred to by the utterance.

I agree. It probably means "I have said the same words already" or
suchlike.

Jorge to lojbab:
> On {sei krefu} we will have to disagree. If {sei dei krefu} makes sense,
> then the gismu list should be corrected so that the x1 need not be
> an event.

(a) I can't imagine {dei} not being an event.
(b) Most things are conceptualizable as events.

coo, mie And