Determiners
The following determiners are definite, which means that they refer to one concrete things and not multiple possible thingses, like with sá. In other words, they act like constants.
| hú | ‘the aforementioned’. Always resolves to one concrete thing, even if that thing might not be clear to the hearer |
|---|---|
| ké | ‘the not aforementioned’. Same as above |
| báq | Always resolves to the associated kind. báq kanı is always a singular ‘rabbit-kind’ |
| cúaq | (Unofficial:) ‘the concept of satisfying property’. Always refers to that one concept |
is definite when it refers to a phrase that appears in the same sentence and that phrase is definite. Otherwise, it does the same thing as ké does, which is definite, too.
Semantics jank
We say a noun phrase is definite if it’s a function of just one plural constant.
For a clause like P sá Q, where the quantifier is represented as ◻, if we’re able to rephrase the usual denotation
[◻𝑥 : 𝑄𝑥] 𝑃𝑥
as
𝑃(℩◻(𝑄))
where ℩◻ exists and is some ⟨⟨𝚎, 𝚝⟩, 𝚎⟩ – then we say that the quantifier ◻ (and its associated determiner sá) is definite. In other words, ℩◻(𝑄) resolves to a single plural constant, which can then directly be plugged into 𝑃 to judge the truth value of the entire clause.
Then, any free determiner phrase is definite if all indices inside it are
- bound inside the 𝑛P
- bound outside the 𝑛P, to a phrase that is itself transitively definite
So for example, the following examples are all definite:
- pó sá (sá is contained within po’s internal CPᵣₑₗ, hence does not escape)
- ké kune bï, cho jí réo hobo (hóbo points to ké kune, which is itself definite)