Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 19 Aug 1993 15:05:53 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 19 Aug 1993 12:33:45 -0400 Message-Id: <199308191633.AA00328@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4343; Thu, 19 Aug 93 12:32:28 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 4067; Thu, 19 Aug 93 12:35:03 EDT Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1993 11:57:58 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: Veijo once more on ZAhOs X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9308191208.AA23829@relay1.UU.NET> from "VILVA@viikki21.helsinki.fi" at Aug 19, 93 08:09:58 am Status: O X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Thu Aug 19 07:57:58 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET la veion. cusku di'e > A PU tense or a PU/ZAhO tcita tells WHERE (or rather WHEN) the event is, > a ZAhO tense tells rather WHAT KIND (the phase of) the event is. The phase > is actually the event we are talking about, the event located with the PU > tense and characterized with the ZAhO 'tense'. There isn't anything else > to look/go to. There is no *future event, no past event, we are talking > about the phase event. This part is sound; in fact, golden. > When there is no explicit ZAhO we can safely > assume an implicit "ca'o". Well, often, perhaps, but not in every case. We have to grok from context what phase is meant. It is possible to say "mi klama le zarci" and mean "mi co'u klama le zarci" = "I've just gone to the store." In particular, this lack of specificity is important in the second half of your message, on which I have not provided detailed comments. In the case "mi ca citka pu'o le nu do klama mi", we don't know which phase of the event "mi citka" is being said to be "pu'o le nu...". We can guess that the "ca'o" phase is probably meant, but we may be wrong. The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity. > If I say "ko'a ca ba'o citka", I am NOT talking about the event of eating > (the ca'o citka) which would be a past event, but about the event of > *post-eating (ba'o citka). On an imaginary journey I am going NOWHERE > from the "ca" point, I already am at the destination. So it is a question > of characterizing, not a question of going somewhere as it would if I > had another PU tense instead of the ZAhO. Again, entirely correct. > Actually I could have TWO PUs > to describe a continuation of the journey from the "ca" at which I am. > These would then define both the position and the extent of the ba'o citka > event. This part is wrong, I think, but I may not understand. The extent of an event is expressed by ZEhA, with a possible following PU to indicate the anchorage of the interval (past justified, future justified, or centered). > And perhaps we ought to go even further and not to use the word "tense" > when talking about ZAhOs? Well, "tense" is a vague term in Lojban, with at least three senses: 1) PU specifically, the "simple tense selma'o". 2) The entire complex of PU/ZI/ZEhA/FAhA/VA/VEhA/VIhA/TAhE/-ROI/ZAhO/FEhE/MOhI compound cmavo. 3) The use of any of these, or their syntactic equivalents BAI/FIhO, before the selbri (or floating about the bridi when followed by KU), as opposed to when used as sumti tcita. "In 'mi bai klama le zarci', 'bai' is a tense, not a sumtcita.", e.g. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.