Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110081549.AA19318@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Tue Oct 8 12:02:29 1991 Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Aorist X-To: conlang@buphy.bu.edu, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: Logical Language Group's message of Tue, 8 Oct 1991 10:16:37 -0400 Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Oct 8 12:02:29 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Indeed, Lojban has some scary tense stuff. You should note, though, that just because I call a tense "aorist" in Sanskrit means neither that it is an aorist now (where "now"=the time of most classical Sanskrit writings--however long ago that was), nor even that it ever was. It's just the name that later grammarians gave it. In Skt, it has another name. It certainly wasn't always a simple past, but what it was need not have been what we call an aorist. Owing to its very broad definition of "tense", Lojban may be one of the only languages that can claim to make all the distinctions possible in Skt as it once was. F'rinstance, one form (I don't remember which, nor even its Skt name), was traditionally used for "past tense at which I was not present", as opposed to past tense observed by the narrator (and, by extension, it was also used for cases in which the narrator felt he wasn't there owing to mental disorientation, as drunkenness. The example my book had was "I babbled like an idiot before the king". Even though the speaker was present, this form might be used stylistically). I'll leave it to Lojbab to prove that lojban can handle this kind of thing; I suspect it can. The actual tenses, in Classical Skt, rarely really made a difference. Some semantic loading, to be sure, did rest on some forms. There were all sorts of options. Some verbs could be conjugated in either the parasmaipada or \=atmnepada systems (now called "active" and "middle" voice, resp. No relation to real meanings). Only difference was the exact form and meter, so you picked what sounded better. Or even take a verb that's usually parasmaipada and use it in \=atmanepada, if it sounds neat, or vice versa. For the most part, there was little semantic loading on these choices by the time most Skt was being written, though I will concede that there was some (even if only to indicate to the reader "See how well I know the language!" Kinda like Nick's praise of the E-o community, that it's poets are held in such high esteem. Command of the intricacies of the language was always considered a status symbol.) ~mark