History: xai

Source of version: 1 (current)

__xai__ KOhA they. Repeats two or more preceding sumti, as ''ra'' repeats one. (proposed by ((Pierre Abbat))) * ((And|I)) think this doesn't merit a precious monosyllablc cmavo: cp ''((ru'ai))'' ----- * le gerku cu jersi le mlatu .i xai tatpi ** ''This is actually no less vague than "le gerku cu jersi le mlatu .i tatpi"'' ***''le gerku'' and ''le mlatu'' are the __only__ preceding sumti, so in this case ''xai'' is very precise: it can only be ''le gerku kujoi le mlatu''. On the other hand, a plain ''tatpi'' could refer to just ''le gerku'', just ''le mlatu'' or to neither. **** Why {joi} rather than just {e}? It seems each of them is tired, not the mass of them (can a mass be tired?). pc ***** I picked ''joi'' because I think it's the most useful. To get "each of them" we can say ''ro xai'', and to emphasize explicitly the mass meaning we can say ''piro xai''. In any case, whatever applies to ''do'', ''ta'' and company should apply to ''xai''. The Book is not very definite about this. ***** Well it's certainly going to have to be worked out whether "xai" means ".e" or "joi". The two sumti are not connected with any such connector in the first sentence, so that has to be created in the second. Also, does xai import ''every'' sumti from the previous sentence, and glom them together using as-yet-unspecified connector? What is meant by "mi klama abu. by. .i xai broda"? ****** It does not import every sumti from the previous sentence, nor do all the sumti it imports need be in the immediately preceding sentence. The proposed definition says "two or more preceding sumti" and I think it is a good one. ''ra'' is similarly vague as to which sumti it sends back to. As for ''mi klama abu. by. .i xai broda'', first notice that ''abu by'' is a single sumti, probably ''abuboi by'' is what was meant. In that case, the most likely interpretation is that ''xai'' selects ''abu'' and ''by'', because talking about two locations together is more likely than talking about a goer and a location. Compare with ''John went from Paris to Rome. They are beautiful cities." It is unlikely that John is meant to be a part of "they". It depends on the context. --((xorxes)) ******* This is absolutely NO better than dropping the sumti completely and letting an implied zo'e represent all that. ********"two or more preceding sumti" is rather more informative than ''zo'e''. Would you also maintain that using ''ra'' is no better than dropping the sumti completely and letting an implied zo'e represent that? ********* ra is clearer than xai and zo'e, because it specifies the number of sumties to copy: one. xai and zo'e both leave the number, and the relationship (.e, joi, etc) undetermined, so they are totally equal. ********* ''xai'' specifies at least two sumti, this often will provide more information than we can get for ''ra''. ''zo'e'' does not even have to be about any previous sumti. Very often it is not. ********** ra means ''one'' sumti; xai means anywhere between 2 and ci'i, so you can see that ra is more well-defined/better specified/less vague/more specific. Likewise, it is true that xai is better specified than zo'e. ********** ''ra'' normally has fewer possible referents, that's true. (The only exception I can think of is when there are exactly two preceding sumti, in which case both ''xai'' and ''ra'' are perfectly well defined.) But that doesn't make it less vague. In a situation for example where we have seven preceding sumti, two of which are obviously related and form a natural group, and the rest are unrelated, ''xai'' has a much more likely obvious referent than ''ra''. **I take back what I said elsewhere about this problem having an easy solution if we just invent new words. {xai} needs for success at least 1) a way of indicating which recent sumti are intended, unless it is all back to the beginning of the conversation, and 2) a way to indicate how they are to be connected, minimally to distinguish {e} and {joi} -- maybe two separate pronouns or taking one as standard and using something from LAhE to get the other. And, for 1, maybe a complex way of indicating which is involved -- backcounting for example. It seems that simple repetition is likely to be easier and clearer. ***For absolute precision you can use subscripts. Just as ''raxipaci'' represents the 13th sumti back, ''xaixipacipi'epabipi'ecimu'' can be used to refer to the 13th, 18th and 25th previous sumti taken together. ****don't you mean rixipaci? ra is ambiguous. Furthermore, anyone who uses a subscript to refer back to the 13th sumti should be shot (or more nicely said: will not be understood). An ambiguous xai would be *far* more useful than any attempt to make it specific (if you need the specificity, there's nothing wrong with going back to goi ko'a and goi ko'e, ko'a joi ko'e). -- mi'e .djorden. *****Of course the plain ''xai'' is the useful one (and the only usable one) but nothing is lost by providing a method for the precision that some people seem to require.