From jjllambias@hotmail.com Sat Jul 01 10:07:37 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 16355 invoked from network); 1 Jul 2000 17:07:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Jul 2000 17:07:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.62) by mta1 with SMTP; 1 Jul 2000 17:07:37 -0000 Received: (qmail 30729 invoked by uid 0); 1 Jul 2000 17:07:36 -0000 Message-ID: <20000701170736.30728.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 200.42.153.49 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Sat, 01 Jul 2000 10:07:36 PDT X-Originating-IP: [200.42.153.49] To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Opposite of za'o Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 10:07:36 PDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed From: "Jorge Llambias" la lojbab cusku di'e >Maybe for time travel tenses we need something for beginning before the >natural beginning of an event? I have trouble coming up with a solid >example otherwise. "Please sit down!" "I'm already sitting down." Natural beginning: after the request. Actual beginning: before the request, thus "already" is used. >BTW, I almost put "even", "only" and "just" in there with those last three, >and these are things that I think we have pretty much agreed are NOT Lojban >tenses, I definitely agree that they are not tenses. They go in the same category as "also", they modify arguments, or the selbri itself, not the whole bridi. >but somehow I suspect that whatever is the issue with the former >also applies to the latter - there is some sort of mismatch between the >mental state expected by the speaker and the real world, and this is an >attitudinal or discursive comment indicating that difference. The mental state of the speaker is not relevant. They are purely descriptive of a situation. There is a mismatch, but not with a state that is particularly related to the speaker. A mismatch between the natural state and the actual state. >>There is no difficulty with "not yet". The most problematic >>is "already", which has two contrasts with "still". > >I don't see why it isn't simply "ba'o". The event is complete. My son >says >"I've already eaten dinner" as he takes a "snack" which happens to be >another full microwave-dinner but not the one we prepared for him. And why doesn't he just say "I've eaten dinner"? What does "already" add to that statement? Maybe because the natural state is that dinner has not started yet? {mi ba'o citka le sanmi} is closer to "I've eaten dinner". "Already" adds something which is missing in both of them. co'o mi'e xorxes ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com