From lojbab@GREBYN.COM Ukn Aug 3 22:49:07 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 3 Aug 1993 22:49:05 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9701; Tue, 03 Aug 93 22:47:56 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 9994; Tue, 03 Aug 93 22:49:21 EDT Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 22:47:06 EDT Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: TECH: A pragmatics sampler X-To: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: Cowan may disagree, 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. 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. 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. 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. Does this clarify, or merely make things murkier? lojbab