From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:31 2010 Reply-To: Ivan A Derzhanski Sender: Lojban list Date: Thu Dec 21 04:15:43 1995 From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: `already' To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 21 Dec 1995 00:31:15 -0500 from Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Thu Dec 21 04:15:43 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Dec 1995 00:31:15 -0500 Jorge Llambias said: >> >PS1: Instead of {ca} I would have preferred to use the proposed new >> >ZAhO for "already". >> bapu'o or ba'opu'o ??? > >bapu'o = will be about to. > >[ca]ba'opu'o = has been about to. > >Neither of those has the meaning of "already". I vote against a specific ZAhO for `already'. It is not an aspectual operator; it is orthogonal to the ZAhO scale ({pu'o} appears to be the only ZAhO whose meaning is incompatible with the idea of alreadiness). There's a lot of linguistic work on `already' and its cousins `still' and `finally' (I could provide references; there was a detailed study by J van den Auwera in _Linguistics and Philosophy_ about 2 years ago), and there's a lot of controversy, but people seem to agree that they characterise the event or state as taking place respectively sooner, longer and later than it might (than anticipated, than on some other occasion etc.) (ignoring a host of derived meanings). I think we should be able to express such things by means of attitudinals. --Ivan