From cbmvax!uunet!ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn Sun Jun  2 21:59:00 1991
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From: cbmvax!uunet!ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn
Message-Id: <9106030051.AA09022@munagin>
To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Cc: nsn@ee.mu.oz.au
Subject: pa/ba case tags
Organisation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne
Smiley-Convention: %^)
Date: Mon, 03 Jun 91 10:51:27 +1000
Status: RO


The problem, lojbanis, is this. In a case tag of selma'o BAI, the semantics
of the tag relates to the tagged phrased, not to the entire phrase. Thus

mi ciska bai lenu mi bebna
I write coz I'm stoopid,

that which is doing the forcing (lo bapli) is the subordinate phrase, lenu mi
bebna, and that which is forced (lo se bapli) is the main bridi, mi ciska.
In 

mi ciska sebai lenu mi bebna
I write, making me stoopid

that which is being forced (lo se bapli) is the subordinate phrase. Ok. Now
the tense case tags, pu and ba, are used analogously to BAI. Then I would
interpret

pu lenu mi se jbena kei mi morsi

as:

Main statement: mi morsi - I'm dead.
Subordinate:	what is being the past (lo purvi) is lenu mi se jbena - I'm 
born. In other words, I interpret the pu as offsetting the subordinate from
the main, and not vice versa:

mi pu se jbena .i mi ca morsi

.i lenu mi se jbena cu purvi mu'i lenu mi morsi

Or, in English:

(Beforehand, I'm born) I die.
I die. Past: I'm born
I die after I'm born

and NOT:

Before I'm born, I die,

which I think is alien to lojban, where, it seems to me, the semantics of
a case tag has some independence from the main bridi. And yet in the lojban
I've seen to date, the NL way of timing is used, and the case tag is used
as an offset of the main bridi from the abstracted subordinate bridi:
before I die, I am born: "I am born" is previous (before) to "I die".

Should we keep it like this? I don't know any Chinese, but isn't that language
taken with 'main claims' rather than baroque links, and wouldn't the Chinese
(and the lojbanis) consider it more logical to offset things like I said?

Sure, it translates badly with the current keywords. In that case, use for
{pu} as a case link the translation "beforehand" (adv.), "previously", not
"before". Similarly, for {ba} use afterwards, not after.

Comments on cleft places later.

Comments?