User:Gleki/Particle ⟨le⟩ for anaphora, cataphora, exophora
le broda checks the last sumti starting from x1 of no'a xi ro (in other words from the first sumti of the main predicate of the current sentence), then sequentially checks other sumti of no'a xi ro, then goes back to di'u (previous sentences) and earlier. When a sumti is found such that the statement SUMTI ca'a broda va'o la'e dei is true then it automatically refers to that SUMTI, and the check process stops. broda may be wrapped into a sumti or may represent a bare selbri. Context is considered a part of the current discourse, consists of unspoken words and can contain unspoken broda too. Inner quantifiers of le are constants, not variables.
Initially proposed by la gleki
Examples. broda wrapped into a sumti
la .alis. cu viska lo ninmu .e lo nanla .i le fetsi cu melbi |
Here le fetsi refers to lo ninmu since it was the last sumti such that lo ninmu ca'a fetsi
la .alis. cu viska lo nanla .i le fetsi cu melbi |
Here le fetsi refers to la .alis. if the context (other parts of text) shows that la .alis. ca'a fetsi
Examples. broda as a bare selbri
la djan cu cusku zo coi la meris .i le cusku cu gleki |
le cusku refers to la djan since the last selbri cusku has been used for describing him.
la djan cu cusku zo coi la meris .i le bacru cu gleki |
Would bacru refer to cusku? Clearly, this is an edge case since the most common usage of le would be le fetsi for she and similar.
Example. Exophora. "The Reality is a text" concept.
le works exophorically too. When a cat enters a room the Reality "says":
ni'o lo mlatu cu nerkla lo kumfa New paragraph: a cat entered a room. |
Then a Lojbanist can comment on this situation by starting to use le immediately:
le mlatu ca zvati ti The cat is here. |
The Reality can be represented as a text in a special way:
- ca, bu'u and fau correspond to no'a xi ro or dei in text form.
- pu corresponds to di'u or go'i in text form.
Inner quantifiers
Inner quantifiers of le are taken from the referenced selbri and can't be changed. They are constants:
lo re mlatu cu pinxe .i lo vo mlatu cu blabi .i le re mlatu cu zvati lo dinju Two cats drink. Four cats are white. Those two cats (from the first sentence) are in a house. |
Here, le re mlatu can refer only two lo re mlatu from the first sentence.
Details
- This proposal is more in line with the actual past usage of le.
- It relies purely on discourse which is easy to track and parse.
- le works not only anaphorically but also cataphorically due to "starting from x1 of no'a xi ro" part of the definition
Common usage
- le fetsi = she
- le nakni = he
- le za'umei = they
- le prenu = ze/'ey
- le dacti = it
Similar constructs
- mi'u is an anaphora operator but doesn't count sumti back
- bi'unai deals with already given information but doesn't count sumti back
- ri does count sumti back but not semantically.
- di'u doesn't deal with sumti