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From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199501031918.AA03808@access2.digex.net>
Subject: Re: Stacked Spatial Tenses
To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu (Lojban List)
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 14:18:18 -0500 (EST)
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group)
In-Reply-To: <199501022100.AA24398@nfs1.digex.net> from "Gerald Koenig" at Jan 2, 95 12:28:43 pm
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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 <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.