Received: from MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 13:34:58 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 13:34:53 -0400 Message-Id: <199308041734.AA18409@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2889; Wed, 04 Aug 93 13:33:09 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8182; Wed, 04 Aug 93 13:31:23 EDT Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 11:00:22 EDT Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: A pragmatics sampler X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9308040249.AA02802@relay1.UU.NET>; from "Logical Language Group" at Aug 3, 93 10:47 pm Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Aug 4 13:34:59 1993 X-From-Space-Address: snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM la lojbab. cusku di'e > Cowan may disagree, So he does, so he does. > but I think the Russian interpretation holds in your > examples. The tense is set (or not set, in these examples) by the main > selbri, which appears first in the sentence. The later tenses are relative > to any earlier tenses. I think not. I think that such effects hold only when "ki" is present; and the notion that they worked at all is a hangover from Old Loglan, where "caba" and "caca" and the others were perfective. Now compound tenses involving "ca" are just redundant (although selective "ki"-ing may make them useful as theoretical constructs: in "baki...ca", the second "ca" means "baca" which is "ba". > If the tenses within the sumti had appeared first in the sentence, things get > a bit more nebulous, but presuming the storytime convention, "ca" is a little > bit after the previous sentence's time. Even in story time, I think that "ca" means present/simultaneously. It is only the absence of all tense marking that activates the "bazi"/"a little bit later" interpretation. Thus ".ica" in a story means "Simultaneously,". This allows the narrator to tell of two events that happened at the same time. > And of course, if a tense is > tied into the ".i": .ijeca, then that sets a more specific reference for > later tense adjustments in the sentence. Since I don't believe in "tense adjustments" except with "ki", I don't believe this either. > I believe also that any specific tensing. either before or after the sumti > in question, would override all this wishy-washyness. "ca le cabna", for > example would make the other "ca" the absolute present (assuming that "le" > is referring to that present. To my mind, "ca le cabna" is so much noise. "Simultaneously with the event which is simultaneous with an unspecified event." Garbage. Say "ca [ku]", or for stickiness "ki [ku]". > Does this clarify, or merely make things murkier? The latter, alas. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.