Message-Id: <199510181643.MAA07831@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Tue, 17 Oct 1995 22:57:39 -0600
Reply-To: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Subject:      Re: perfective counting & katna
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

>> > {mi nacpoiba'u} would be "I count (in the usual order)".
>> >        mi nacpoiba'u co'a li mu co'u li pano
>> >        I count from five to ten.
>>
>> That means "I count at the inception of 5 and at the cessation of 10".
>
>Not according to Nick's usage, which I like very much in this respect.
>
>{co'a} and {co'u} behave well as tcita, like any other non-ZAhO tense
>and any BAI: essentially <selbri> <tag> <sumti> has the same kind of
>meaning of <tag> <selbri> but with greater precision as to the effect
>of the tag. {co'a <sumti>} is "starting at <sumti>", and {co'u <sumti>}
>is "stopping at <sumti>".

Up till now I have been using And's method, which I think is what's
recommended in the reference grammars.  However, there's a problem with it:

  mi co'a citka le plise  --> I start eating the apple

should be the same as:

  mi co'a ku citka le plise

and therefore

  mi citka le plise co'a ku

and therefore

  mi citka le plise co'a da ku

But somewhere along the line the meaninng changed: we're now talking about
the start of {da} rather than the start of {citka}.

>The irregular ones are {ba'o} and {pu'o}, and I see no reason to
>spread their disease to other ZAhO.

With Nick's system, there ought to be a consistent way of interpreting even
{ba'o} and {pu'o}:

  mi citka le plise pu'o lenu do mi cinba

        I ate the apple over a stretch of time such that your kissing
        of me was just beforehand

        I was about to eat the apple when you kissed me

This would parallel {ba} nicely:

  mi ba citka le plise
        I will eat the apple
  mi citka le plise ba lenu do mi cinba
        I eat the apple after you kiss me
  mi pu'o citka le plise
        I am/was/will-be about to eat the apple
  mi citka le plise pu'o lenu do mi cinba
        I am/was/will-be about to eat the apple when you kiss me

For once I'm going to be a non-stick-in-the-mud and say I like this much
better than what I believe the official version to be.  Selbri tcita ought
to be consistently considered shorthand for sumti tcita.
                     ____
 Chris Bogart        \  /  ftp://ftp.csn.net/cbogart/html/homepage.html
 Boulder, CO          \/   cbogart@quetzal.com