Message-Id: <199308050313.AA13665@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 4 Aug 1993 23:08:01 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 tenses
To: Erik Rauch <erikr@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU>
Status: O

JO> This is wrong, the rest of the ZAhO would not be affected, and the
JO> relationship between them has nothing to do with the etymologies of
JO> pu'o and ba'o. Their meanings, of course, would also remain the same,
JO> it's just their name that is  wrong.

I don't think so.  Even the English keywords make it clear:
za'o is superfective
ba'o is perfective
and I now recall that za'o was even chosen to match vowels with ba'o

ba'o is talking about the time after an event ends
za'o is talking about the time that an event continues after it should
normally have ended

I don't know if this is in Imaginary Journeys, but the ZAhO tenses were
 originally defined to me by pc in terms of running a race.

pu'o is the time when the runners are lined up on the blocks and the race is
just about to begin - there is a clear event about to take place, and people
are focussed on that event, and think of the current time in terms of it being
just before that event.

co'a is the time that the gun goes off - a point event

de'a and di'a fit auto racing better, but refer to times during teh race where
it stops for some reason and then resumes (Tour de France bike racing has this
too, I think)

co'u is when someone drops out of the race early or the race is stopped as a
whole before it completes, perhaps due to a foul.  It might also be
equivalent to

mu'o which is the point that the race actually ends by someone winning.

However in racing, the racers don't stop right at the finish line at mu'o
jivna, because of momentum.  If someone were to trip while in that short
period after crossing the finish line but before they has stopped, then
they have tripped in the superfective of the race-running.

The awarding of the medals, though, takes place after the race is actually
over, but while people are still looking back on the race (as a whole event).

Clearly the last two are more closely related, being defined by the ending
point - they are za'o and ba'o respectively.  There is little relationship
between za'o and pu'o.

Do you now see why a metaphor based on "after" was chosen for what we label
"ba'o"?  Conflicts with the Imaginary Journeys metaphor are unfortunate, since
John has chosen to use this in his paper on Lojban tense, but Imaginary
Journeys is a pedagogical tool more than it is a design tool for the tense
system.

(I believe, but am not sure, that Imaginary Journeys doesn't track completely
with the "story time" convention for tense, either, which is anotherr
underlying metaphor that predates Imaginary Journeys.  Thus I, focussing on
story time, gave a different answer than Cowan focussing on Imaginary Journeys,
to Nick's deixis problem.  It is possible that Cowan and I honestly disagree
and that one of us is wrong on our answer to Nick, but it is also possible
that both of us are right, and that the answer depends on the convention
being used to analyze the sentneces.  I say this not having read all my
mail, wherein someone is likely to have commented on the fact that John and
I disagreeed.  At least I think we disagreed; I was reading fast at a very late
horu when I got to his message.)

lojbab