Message-Id: <199309012353.AA06582@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 1 Sep 1993 19:52:16 EDT
Reply-To: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Event contours and ZAhO tcita
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

>
> Jimc says: the deep structure which a BAI phrase represents is this:
> Suppose we say for example
>
>         mi citka sepi'o lo smuci        I eat with a spoon
>
> There is a gismu associated with almost every BAI (but not ZAhO's)
> and etymologically related to it, in this case {pilno = use}.

The PUs do have etymologically related gismu, but they don't fit this
framework.

> The BAI phrase is interpreted by jimc to mean a restrictive relation,
> in the style (but not the syntactic connections) of a subordinate
> clause with poi, through that gismu between the containing bridi
> and the phrases's sumti, as in
>
>         zo'e pilno lo smuci lo nu mi citka
>                 A spoon is used for me to eat with
>
> except that the containing bridi remains the focus of assertion, not
> the transformed bridi with the BAI gismu, in the style of a restrictive
> subordinate clause.
>

Yes, I think it's clear how the BAIs work. You can take it a step further
and say

        mi sepi'o citka
                I using-something eat. (Or something like that.)

You need this further step if you are to compare the BAIs and the ZAhOs.


> So how do we interpret a ZAhO in this framework?  While ZAhO's don't
> have official related gismu, they are associated with some kind of
> predicate relation, though I'm not going to try to whip out various
> jvajvo for them :-)

I don't deny this. I'm concerned with the tense vs tcita comparison,
rather than the tcita vs associated lujvo. And an associated lujvo can
be created for both interpretations.


> When used as a sumti tcita, a ZAhO such as {ba\'o}
> signifies that this relation applies restrictively between the main
> bridi and the argument.  This relation can be whatever we define it
> to be.

No doubt about it. It's just that it's easier if the relation is consistent
with the rest of the tenses.


> For example, John Cowan recently interpreted {ba'o} to
> mean "main bridi is a portion of the argument process and is in its
> aftermath phase", whereas I think Veijo is saying that he swallows
> only part of this definition: "main bridi is coincident in time with
> the aftermath phase of the argument process".
>
> In either case, it's clear, as Veijo says, that the contoured event
> is the argument, and if the main bridi has a contour you can't infer
> it from the BAI phrase.

I agree. This is the current interpretation. The details of whether the
main bridi is to be taken as a point event or not in the absence of an
explicit ZAhO is secondary.

>
> Jorge Llambias recently expressed confusion with Lojbab's saying that
> ZAhO as a sumti tcita is backwards from ZAhO as a tense.

I don't think lojbab said that, but I agree with it.


> Interpreted
> through the above deep structure the reversal becomes clear.
>
>         (bridi) ZAhO (sumti)    means
>         (bridi) is in the (ZAhO) phase of process (sumti)
>
> whereas
>
>         ZAhO (bridi)            (used as a tense) means
>         (bridi) is in the (ZAhO) phase of (itself as an extended process)
>
> where the word "means" includes caveats above about the focus of
> assertion.  In the second version the main bridi (considered extendedly)
> is the process which has phases, whereas in the first version some
> other sumti is the process that has phases.
>

How does PU ZAhO enter in this scheme?

Jorge