From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Sat Mar 6 23:01:25 2010 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sun, 20 Sep 1992 23:22:11 -0400 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4383; Sun, 20 Sep 92 23:21:00 EDT Received: by UGA (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) id 6554; Sun, 20 Sep 92 23:20:58 EDT Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1992 23:21:24 -0400 Reply-To: "(Logical Language Group)" Sender: Lojban list From: "(Logical Language Group)" Subject: TECH: Higley on tense (I think that is the topic) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: O X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Sun Sep 20 23:22:13 1992 X-From-Space-Address: @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: Comments Below are a few short comments on the tense system. But I would first like to congratulate John Cowan and any others who worked on it. It is brilliantly designed, flexible, and fascinating! It took me no time at all to understand it, with one exception which I have noted below. One thing that I think should be pointed out more clearly is that the new usage of selma'o VA is going to alter the way it is used as sumti tcita. (I am not assuming you don't already realize this: I just think it should be made more clear to those who might not.) Remember that it is no longer the spatial analog of selma'o PU. FAhA is the proper spatial analog of PU, while ZI is the analog of VA. As you well know, zu'avi means "a short distance left": vi means "a short distance [from the origin, in the direction specified, if any]". Therefore, vi le tcadu doesn't mean "in the city" but "a short distance from the city". The spatial relation analogous to ca is bu'u, which, along with ne'i is probably best for "in/at": bu'u le tcadu "in the city"; bu'uvi le tcadu/vi le tcadu "a short distance from the city"; bu'uva le tcadu/va le tcadu "a medium distance from the city"; etc. just as ca le djedi means "in the day" -- in all of these examples we could have used ne'i as well as bu'u, although they aren't always interchangeable. One thing that you may consider changing is te'e "bordering". I suggest putting this in selma'o VA, where it might prove more useful. (Although I could be misinterpreting its meaning.) Can te'e be used to mean "touching/in contact with"? There is currently no cmavo assigned to indicate when two things are actually in contact except for this one. The problem with it is that it only indicates that they are bordering, and not where they are bordering. As a member of VA, we could then have such constructs as ni'ate'e "bordering below, i.e. on (/in contact with) the bottom of", or ga'ute'e "on top of". (Leaving it "as is" really doesn't help. ni'ate'e, in the current definition means [origin] [down] [bordering]: "bordering a place below . . .", which could mean "on the bottom of", but probably doesn't in most cases.) This, to my mind, would complete VA very nicely. We would have: te'e "in contact with/touching"; vi "a short distance from"; va "a medium distance from"; vu "a long distance from". Perhaps a new, shorter cmavo could be chosen for this function, if any are left. I'm having a little difficulty using logical connectives with tense constructs, especially long ones. To solve my problem: Which binds more tightly, the connectives or the modifiers of the words connected, e.g. in pujeba zi do we have .pu je ba/ zi or pu je .ba zi/? How the hell do you use zo'i, ze'o, and fa'a, to'o? They all appear to represent orientation. Am I right in assuming that zo'izu'a means "to the left of a place oriented towards me" and zu'azo'i means "on my left, oriented towards me"? Just wanted to be sure. Is it possible to bind a temporal and spatial tense more tightly together so that we can indicate position at a certain time? In the sentence la ivan pu ti'a zutse le stizu "Ivan sat behind me in the chair," does ti'a refer to where you were at the time, or to where you are now, or even where you will be? Is ti'a tied to pu? Maybe a word order convention could be useful here. A temporal construct appended to the end of a spatial construct would link them in time, and a temporal construct placed before a space construct would be independent. Thus ba ti'a pu zutse would mean "will sit behind where I sat". We can still have our vagueness if we like: pu ti'a with no following time marker makes ti'a vague as to time. pu ti'a ca would mean, of course, "behind me then". Is there another way to do this that I've overlooked? Logical connectives won't do it, perhaps bo will. I think my suggestion is more flexible. In the case of a logical connective, there is exactly that: logical connection, which is usually independent of time. pujeti'a says nothing about the "time" of ti'a, it just says "both before in time and behind in space" -- not necessarily simultaneously. Greg Higley