zo'e broda gi'e brode

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zo'e broda gi'e brode expands to zo'e broda .i zo'e brode. It's the same without explicit zo'e: broda gi'e brode expands to broda .ije brode. Well, except that in this case it's not an expansion, exactly.

The Book authoritatively states that the initial zo'e places need not have the same value. See chapter 14, section 9, examples 9.9 to 9.11. And that makes sense; it simplifies the transformation rule. (The book gives a more complicated argument that doesn't fully make sense to me, but so what?)

However, a little Grice told me that people will tend not to choose the longer word gi'e over the shorter word .i without cause. For Gricean reasons, someone who's gone to the trouble to say broda gi'e brode probably means to suggest, unless there's context to otherwise glork, that the unexpressed x1 places are the same.

  • jezrax:
    Unless you have another idea about what they might be meaning to suggest?
    • But if someone did want to observe that something does broda and brode, they might more likely say broda je brode.
      • .kreig.daniyl.:
        Which is still shorter. Basically, this means that for Gricean reasons nobody will say broda gi'e brode, and so you are arguing not over the literal meaning of the utterance but why someone would say something that it is unlikely that they would say. However, discussing gi'e brings up a question I have - does ko broda gi'e brode expand to ko broda .i brode or ko broda .i ko brode?
        • xorxes:
          broda ko'a ko'e gi'e brode ko'i ko'o might be preferred over broda be ko'a bei ko'e je brode be ko'i bei ko'o (assuming broda gi'e brode really is equivalent to broda je brode). ko broda gi'e brode expands to ko broda ije ko brode. Strictly speaking there is no short form for the bare i connection
          • I thought so. But wouldn't that mean that in Lobster Quadrille, the sentence .i ko ti'a zgana .ua pa xajyfi'e noi jbitrixe gi'e me mi rebla stapa commands the listener to step on the speaker's tail - not quite the intent of the original.
            • xorxes:
              That's noi (jbitrixe gi'e me mi rebla stapa). You're reading a terminator after jbitrixe that is not there.