Re: Autoconversion of goi???

[cowan (John Cowan)]

la djim. kartr. cusku di'e:
> I see here "le nanla goi ko'a" where the main phrase is the antecedent of
> the anaphor, and also "ko'e goi lo velcnemu..." where the anaphor is
> the main phrase.  Is this really allowed?  For humans speaking normally
> it is fairly easy to distinguish the anaphor from its newly assigned
> antecedent, but to nail down the difference in all possible circumstances
> may be more difficult.

> If "goi" may be used to "also-known-as" a pair of non-anaphor sumti,
> you have two interpretations of "A goi B": one analogous to the anaphor
> case in which one sumti is primary and the other is a symbol or
> abbreviation for it, and another where A and B are alternative
> specifications of the same referent set each of which can stand on its
> own.  That's commutative whereas the first interpretation is not.

Grammatically, "A goi B" is legal where A and B may be any sumti.  
Semantically, though, either A or B should be a pro-sumti.  (The word
"anaphor" has too many problems when the thing "anaphorized" actually
follows, and saying "anaphor/cataphor" is just too awkward for me.)
The whole purpose of "goi" (and its selbri analogue, "cei") is pro-sumti
(viz. pro-bridi) assignment, and use where either A or B is not a pro-sumti
is of doubtful meaning.

The general case should use "no'u", which is the non-restrictive appositional
phrase marker and means "which incidentally is".

-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban