From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:45:50 2010 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list Date: Wed Dec 6 16:19:52 1995 From: ucleaar Subject: ZAhO and tanru X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 6 16:19:52 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: > The underlying concept in Lojban is that all tenses are in a sense an > abbreviation for a second subordinate bridi that restricts the main > bridi to a particular range of space/time, after the manner of BAI and > fi'o + bridi. I see true tenses, i.e. PU, as predicated of the invisible event argument that is rendered accessible by {nu}. The tenses tell us when the event happened. > Thus, modifying your expression: da ba'o citno turnyjatna nunturni > x is in the aftermath of the young president governing > could transform into something like > da citno turnyjatna nunturni > x is a young president governing > .i le cabna cu bavlamji lenu go'i > The space-time reference is immediately after the previosu event. (You just need {le gohi}, not {le nu gohi}.) {da balvi le citno turnyjatna nunturni} does just as well. It is an extremely uninformative bridi, by the way. > ZAhO SHOULD NOT work quasi-tanruishly - they should work tensishly. They should work tensishly in that that is their intention. But at present I cannot see a rationale for that. > Use the tense-based gismu (and lujvo for ZAhOs - there might be some > validity to an argument that they should be assigned gismu as well) Well I won't put that argument just yet. My current argument is first that I've yet to see anything tensey (as opposed to aspectual) about ZAhO, and second that when I did struggle to understand them with the assistance of Jorge, I ended up thinking them quasi-tanruish. For example, consider {mi coa citka}. That must say more than that the eating has a beginning, because every eating has a beginning. So I have been understanding it to be creating a new selbri with predictable meaning "begin to eat", so {le nu coa citka} or {nu zei coa zei citka} is an achievement rather than an activity. But now you seem to be saying that it means "I begin to eat now", while {mi bao citka} wd mean "I am no longer eating". So: mutce cfipe (or whatever "confusion" is). If we must have ZAhOs, I like them better working in the quasitanruish NAhE way. --- And