Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110091753.AA25112@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Wed Oct 9 14:30:50 1991 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: Aorist X-To: lojban To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: <9110081858.AA12722@relay1.UU.NET>; from "And Rosta" at Oct 8, 91 7:53 pm Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Wed Oct 9 14:30:50 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN [I have moved this post from conlang to Lojban List.] la .and. rostas. cusku di'e: > >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). > This is very interesting. Is this presence/absence feature isolated, or > is it part of a larger system of evidential modality? If the verb with > the presence/absence feature occurs within a subordinate clause (e.g. _Sophy > knew that Arthur wept_), does this mean that the speaker was present/absent > with respect to Arthur's weeping, or could it mean that Sophy was > present/absent? Can lojban show the difference? Do its evidentials & > other modal particles have an argument for perceiver, believer, > obligator, etc., that defaults to 'speaker' but can be specified as > someone else (Sophy in the above example)? The Lojban evidentials are outside the grammar (can be inserted anywhere) and always refer to the speaker. la sofis. djuno le nu za'a la .artr. klaku Sophy knows the event-of [I observe it!] Arthur weeps means that the weeping was observed. If the "za'a" appeared at the beginning, the sentence would assert that the speaker observed Sophy's knowing -- whatever that might mean. To say what Sophy observed, it is necessary to use the Lojban metalinguistic indicator "sei". This marks a subordinate claim that comments on the main claim, in the same way that the evidentials do, but with greater semantic generality: la sofis. djuno le nu la .artr. klaku sei ra zabna Sophy knows the event-of Arthur weeps (the former observes it) This may be used quite generally: la .and. rostas. sei la lojbab. .e mi na krici cu merko And Rosta (Lojbab and I don't believe it!) is an American. I would use this sentence if reporting someone else's opinion. -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban