WikiDiscuss

Mostly nitpicking...

> ;noi (NOI):Incidental (non-restrictive) relative clause marker.
> ** The "relative" part means that it attaches to a sumti to provide
> additional information about the referants of that sumti.

I would rather say: "The relative part means that it relates a clause
to a sumti".

That the clause provides additional info about the referents of
the sumti is true, but it is not what the "relative" part contributes.
(This also applies to the other NOIs and GOIs.)

> ** The "non-restrictive" part means that the information in the
> noi clause is not used to restrict the set of things that the sumti
> noi is attached to refers to. The noi bridi is true about the sumti
> noi is attached to, but is not necessarily enough to pick out only the
> things the speaker has in mind among all the possible things that the sumti
> noi is attached to could refer to.

I would replace

"The noi bridi is true about the sumti
noi is attached to, but is not necessarily enough to pick out only the
things the speaker has in mind among all the possible things that the sumti
noi is attached to could refer to."

with "The noi bridi gives additional information about the referents
of the sumti noi is attached to."

We can't know in general that the information given will always be true,
maybe the speaker is lying or mistaken about it, so instead of "is true"
you should say "is claimed".

Neither {poi} nor {noi} are concerned with the possible things that
the sumti in question could refer to. They are only concerned with
the things that the sumti does refer to in the given context.
Given those things that the sumti does refer to, noi adds info about
them whereas poi selects some of them. So, while it is true that the
noi clause "is not necessarily enough to pick out only the things the
speaker has in mind among all the possible things that the sumti
noi is attached to could refer to", exactly the same could be
said of a poi clause.

> ** Generally, noi is only used when the referents of the sumti have
> already been explained, or are obvious, and the speaker wishes to give
> additional information.

If you say that, then the equivalent for poi would be:

• Generally, poi is only used when the referents of the sumti have

already been explained, or are obvious, and the speaker wishes to select
some of them.

I don't think either comment is particularly relevant to the definition.

> ** Inside a noi clause, ke'a indicates the precise place of the bridi
> that the sumti is intended to fill, and translates some uses of the English
> word "it".

I don't know if that comment is helpful for English speakers or not.
The combo {noi+ke'a} (or {poi+ke'a}) is what normally translates
the relative pronouns "which", "what", "who", "where":

le cukta poi mi ke'a do dunda
The book which I gave you.
?The book which I gave you it.

And, if "it" ever really translates {ke'a}, then so will all other
pronouns:

do noi mi nelci ke'a
You, who I like (?you),

Or maybe I'm missing the point of the "it" comment.

> ;poi (NOI):Restrictive relative clause marker.
>
>
> ** The "restrictive" part means that the information in the poi
> clause is used to restrict the set of things that the sumti poi is
> attached to refers to.

OK.

> In other words, out of all the referants of the sumti
> that poi is attached to (which, for example, in the case of lo dacti
> is a great many things indeed) the sumti is actually intended by the speaker
> to refer only to those things that the sumti could refer to for which the
> bridi in the poi clause is also true.

I get the idea, but I'm not too happy with the wording of that.
{lo dacti} gets referents when it is used in a context. It doesn't
have a fixed set of referents for all contexts, so we can't just
say that it has a lot of referents. The poi clause narrows down the
referents that the speaker started out with.

>poi is often used with da
> to restrict da to just those things which satisfy the poi clause.

That's right, {da} refers to anything that counts as a thing in a given
context, and poi restricts any quantifier on da to the things that satisfy
the clause.

> (AKA conversion formulas)
>
> zi'e | sumti' relative' zi'e relative' rest' | ko'a goi sumti
> relative' rest' .i je ko'a relative' rest'

I think these:
sumti noi subsentence1 zi'e noi subsentence2
| sumti noi ge subsentence1 gi subsentence2
sumti poi subsentence1 zi'e poi subsentence2
| sumti poi ge subsentence1 gi subsentence2

are much superior as conversion formulas, and are more general
because they don't require a particular context. The other won't
work in general when the sumti is not at the beginning of a bridi.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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