Message-Id: <199510120250.WAA12131@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Wed, 11 Oct 1995 12:57:07 -0600
Reply-To: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Subject:      Re: tenses
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

>[...]What one should in those circumstances say is, I
>suggest, {coa dahi nu koa citka pa plise} or {coa nu dahi koa citka
>pa plise}, where {dahi} has the function of expanding the universe
>to include the imaginable as well as the actual.

That sounds right to me.

>[Chris uses {dahi} to mean "suppose", as in the first sentence of this
>para, but {rua} would seem to be fitter for some of those uses.]

From the ref grammar's attitudinal paper:
]The discursive "da'i" marks the discourse as possibly taking a non-real-world
]viewpoint ("Supposing that", "By hypothesis"), whereas "da'inai" insists on
]the real-world point of view ("In fact", "In truth", "According to the facts").

]A bridi marked by "ru'a" is an assumption made by the speaker.  This is
]similar to one possible use of ".e'u".

I don't think I've ever used {ru'a}, but IMO it says that I'm assuming
something in the real world is true; quite different from flagging a
temporary assumption for the sake of discourse.  Maybe {da'iru'a} would do
that, but the logical connector ({.inaja} or {seri'a} or whatever) seems to
make {ru'a} superfluous in that usage.

I think I'd use {ru'a} to say something like "mi puzi jukpa lei ckafi .i
ru'a do pinxe djica"