Received: from MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 13:34:16 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 13:34:11 -0400 Message-Id: <199308041734.AA18370@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2885; Wed, 04 Aug 93 13:32:34 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8190; Wed, 04 Aug 93 13:31:27 EDT Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 11:23:09 EDT Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: On the tense system of ZAhO X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9308040923.AA01766@relay1.UU.NET>; from "Colin Fine" at Aug 4, 93 10:21 am Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Aug 4 13:34:17 1993 X-From-Space-Address: snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM la kolin. cusku di'e > I concur with Jorge that Bob is making a specious distinction > in order to explain something that, on hindsight, was an > error. I, OTOH, believe that Bob has it exactly right. "Ordinary tenses refer to the space/time reference, whereas ZAhO tenses refer to the event itself." Some version of that sentence will go in the next draft, and possibly some of Bob's examples as well. It is unfortunate that ZAhOs don't agree with PU/FAhA, but then they are meant to serve different functions. Remember that they describe >interval< contours: they are part of the specification of the interval, which also "refers to the event itself". Thus VEhA describes the event's extension in space without reference to the speaker (although the context specifies what is large, what is small, and what is in-between). The main difference between ZAhO and ZEhA/VEhA/VIhA/TAhE/-ROI is that ZAhOs have a natural use as sumti tcita (they are in some sense 2-place) whereas the others do not. > ZAhO fit into imaginary journeys, but for historical reasons > two of them were given words with inappropriate etymologies. I think not. The ZAhOs are built on an internally consistent pattern which must (for reasons of inertia) and should (because of this internal self-consistency) be preserved. > It is true that they work differently from PU when used as sumti > tcita, but that is not a reason to run the imaginary journey the > wrong way. The reason is that they characterize the event itself which lies at the end of the journey. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.