Message-Id: <199501211234.AA29205@nfs2.digex.net>
Date:         Sat, 21 Jan 1995 13:33:15 MET
Reply-To: Goran Topic <topic@math.hr>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Goran Topic <topic@math.hr>
Subject:      Re: ago (LONG and la'a incorrect :))
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Status: RO

> And doesn't that imply that its sumti complement has to become the origin?
> What else could it mean?

Maybe you are right. But then you need to deal with additinal semantic
component, stickiness... So, to mark origin with {ki} without making it
stick you'd need something like *{ki lo ckule kiku}... Side-effect of
which is that you lose the currently stuck-to tense... So, if you have
another sticy tense in effect, you'd need {kixipa lo ckule kixipaku}...

> >  But I still don't think ZI/VA classes are not useful
> > as they are. Tell me, which FAhA would you use for 'somewhere around
> > the school, not too far' which is what {va le ckule} conveys?
>
> {to'o le ckule}, which you and Lojbab didn't like.
>
> To me, if {lei verba cu kelci to'o le ckule} implies that the playing
> faces away from the school, then {lei verba cu kelci zu'a le ckule}
> implies that it faces left of the school. I thought that the FAhAs
> show the position of the event relative to the origin, and not where
> the event faces.

to'o      FAhA4    away from point
                   location tense relation/direction;
                   departing from/directly away from ...

ju'ocu'i pe'i FAhA4 is semantically a bit different from other FAhA:

fa'a               arriving at/directly towards
to'o               directly away/departing from
ze'o               outward/receding from
zo'a               tangential to/passing by
zo'i               inward/approaching from

I can't imagine them not stating direction, or what you think what
each of {fa'a/to'o/ze'o/zo'a/zo'i le ckule} means. BTW, see note at
the bottom of the tense paper, where is says about {to'o} referring
to a ba'e direction relative to speaker/current origin.


> > xorxes proposes that we change the meaning of {VI/ZI <sumti>} to
> > mean the distance rather that offset,
>
> [Note on vocabulary: "offset" means the same as "displacement" to me.
> I propose that the sumti be the displacement (or offset) instead
> of the origin.]

OK, I'll try to stick to your vocab... :) That is not the point of
my proposal. :)

> > so that we can express those
> > sentences as
> >
> >   lei verba cu kelci va lo mitre beli cino
> >   mi klama lo zarci za lo djedi beli re
> >
> > I don't know how he proposes to translate "The children are playing
> > around the school",
>
>         lei verba cu kelci ru'u le ckule

Yes. That's completely correct, but not what I had in mind. This
xlation literally means "The children, in their play, surround
the school", in the same way the bowl surrounds the soup. My meaning
was that some group of children to whom I was referring is playing
at a locus in the vicinity of the school. zo'opaunai how many children's
games do you know that take enough place to surround the school without
the building bothering them?

> > much less "The children are playing 30 metres
> > from the school".
>
>         lei verba cu kelci to'o le ckule va lei cino mitre

That goes back on the {to'o} discussion, I won't get into that again here...

> > xorxes, your turn. (I hope I did not misquote
> > your thoughts.)
>
> Only slightly mis.  :)

.oizo'o I'm no miss, I'm mister.

> co'o mi'e xorxes noi zanru le nu la goran ciksi sy zo'onaicai

co'o mi'e. goran noi ckire la xorxes. leka zanru

--
Learn languages! The more langs you know, the more incomprehensible you can get
e'udoCILreleiBANgu.izo'ozo'onairoBANguteDJUnobedocubanRI'a.ailekadonaka'eSELjmi