Message-Id: <199308190209.AA03698@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 1993 22:08:44 EDT
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Subject:      Re: ZAhO: A view from the sidelines
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

2.MF> 2.  How far back before the event does the period covered by pu'o
MF> extend?
MF>     (and how far after for ba'o?)
MF>
MF> S:  Theoretically, the period covered by pu'o extends infinitely
MF> before the
MF>     event and ba'o infinitely after, however some people have been
MF> using
MF>     them to suggest "about to" and "just after" i.e. marking a point
MF> in time
MF>     shortly before the event has happened or just after it has
MF> happened.
MF>
MF> C:  Apart from the fact that they're slightly more cumbersome, why
MF> can't
MF>     "bazi co'a" and "puzi mo'u" be used to express these concepts?

The reason that pu'o is used for "just before" is that in most cases for
a future event, and many cases for a past or present event, you don't/didn't
relate to the event as a whole until just before.

Thus one could say that our entire life and even the time my great-great-...
parents lived is "pu'o lenu mi morsi" before the time I'm dead, but my death
is not "inchoative" until it is forseen and reacted to as an event, i.e.
until I'm dying; i.e. on my deathbed.  Thus "I'm dying" is "mi pu'o morsi".
Now if it happens that at the ripe old age of 40, expecting to live many more
years, I write a will for what happens when I die, that is also "pu'o morsi"
though my death is not immediately impending.

Similarly, aftermaths tend to have a short aura.  The aftermath of the
1000 meter run at a track meet on this date last year has long ended, except
possibly for a couple of people for whom the meet was significant.  On the
other hand, we can consider the Balkan crisis as the aftermath of the
Ottoman empire, as some historians do, or even consider Christianity as
ba'o la xrist. the after math of Christ.

Thus pu'o and ba'o are SUBJECTIVE tenses, they depend upon the person's
attitude towards the event the tense is based on, and what if any ties are
seen between that event and whatever you are talking about in the sentence.
"ba", and "pu" etc. do not presume any relationship between the event and the
current sentence other than the imaginary journey from one to the other.

lojbab