Return-Path: Received: from kantti.helsinki.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0rPHq1-00007NC; Wed, 4 Jan 95 00:36 EET Received: from fiport.funet.fi (fiport.funet.fi [128.214.109.150]) by kantti.helsinki.fi (8.6.9/8.6.5) with ESMTP id AAA16871 for ; Wed, 4 Jan 1995 00:36:20 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (MAILER@SEARN) by FIPORT.FUNET.FI (PMDF V4.3-13 #2494) id <01HLFCORMKN4001HRQ@FIPORT.FUNET.FI>; Tue, 03 Jan 1995 22:35:35 +0200 (EET) Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 7815; Tue, 3 Jan 1995 23:32:54 +0100 Date: Tue, 03 Jan 1995 14:18:18 -0500 From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Stacked Spatial Tenses In-reply-to: <199501022100.AA24398@nfs1.digex.net> from "Gerald Koenig" at Jan 2, 95 12:28:43 pm Sender: Lojban list To: Veijo Vilva Reply-to: Logical Language Group Message-id: <01HLFCORNN9E001HRQ@FIPORT.FUNET.FI> X-Envelope-to: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-To: Lojban List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2980 Lines: 72 Gerald Koenig asks, most cogently, about the following problem: > A drill instructor and his lojbo squad are facing the top of your > screen, which represents the far side of a drill field. He holds > his position and barks: > > ko cadzu ca'uvi ri'uvi ri'uvi ri'uvi [definitions omitted] > Does the squad trace out pattern A; (O is the start) [picture of square omitted] > Or pattern B? [picture of L-shape omitted] > If the drill instructor marches along always facing the same way as the > squad, which pattern is traced? Well, to start out with, spatial tenses generally indicate where something is done, not over what route it is done. That's why the tense paper is called ">Imaginary< Journeys". What your Lojban sentence says is: March in a region to the right of a second region, which is to the right of a third region, which is to the right of a fourth region, which is in front of me, where all distances are short! There is no indication of how the listeners are supposed to get to this place, or in what direction they are to march. However, this problem may be corrected by using "mo'i", which causes a spatial tense to indicate a direction of (self) motion, rather than a static location. I think a valid formulation of your order is: ko cadzu mo'ica'uvi .i mo'iri'uvi .i mo'iri'uvi .i mo'iri'uvi Here we have four different sentences, of which the first unambiguously means "March forward!". The next three sentences are just tenses, but can be understand as elliptically repeating the preceding bridi; you could introduce a "go'i" to make the logical structure clear, although "go'ira'o" might be better. This generates pattern A, which is (I suppose) what we want. To generate B, just change the last two to "mo'ica'uvi .i mo'ica'uvi". > Basically I want to know if the spatial tenses are are bound to the > speaker's position, and if not when and how does the coordinate system > change origin or orientation. Is the system always relative to the > speaker's current position by default? Is "ko cadzu ca'avi ki etc. " > necessary to get pattern B when the drill instructor marches along? Spatial tenses are normally bound to the speaker's position. If the speaker is remote from the action, then some natural coordinate system may be employed: a football commentator normally uses "forward" to mean "toward the goal of the team which does not currently possess the ball". If the D.I. does >not< march with the squad, then the commands above get pattern B. I note that drill orders in English generally take the form of an order, which is not acted on, followed by a pause, followed by an execution word, which is often the verb of the order, e.g. "Dress right ... dress!" In Lojban, this could be represented by: cadzu mo'ica'uzi . ko! -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.