Message-Id: <199602151118.GAA21239@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 15 Feb 1996 05:43:53 -0500
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: sera'aku GEN: almost-PROPOSAL: intervals
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 2178

Don Wiggins writes:
>To my mind these are heavy-weight.  The simplest and cleanest solution is:
>
>    .i mi klama la glazgov. pulenu xabju la belfast. kei zalo nanca belipimu
>
>I can't think of any other possible interpretation for the sumti which
>follows ZA.

Let us say that we agree that what follows za is an interval distance.
We now have a distance, what is the direction?  You c
annot necessarily
assume the pu from the previous sumti tcita tells youthat it is in the
past.  Another interpretation of the above sentence is that I WILL go to
Glasgow, 6 months from NOW, just before
 starting to live in Belfast.


But seeing this example does cause something to click in my mind, that
generalizes the problem.  I do not yet have a solution.  But what we seem
to be facing is a situation where we want a sumti tcita to attach to, not one,
but 2 sumti, each with a somewhat different relationship to the seubordinate
bridi implied by the tcita.  We already HAVE a parallle problem that is
much clearer:  what if you want to attach a 2nd sumti onto the implied
relationship of a BAI tcita.  I have long been unsatisfied by the need
for totally separate tcita sumti: sepi'o [sumti] tepi'o [sumti].
If we solve THIS problem so as to link the sumti to the same pilno
relatioship, then I suspect that linking in a distance to a pu-tagged sumti
will be doable the same way, though perhaps with a different tag than
"za" - how about la'u?  before the inhabiting, in amount 6 months.

I would be interested in grammar and cmavo proposals that address this type of
multiple sumti linking, and I would rather see a new cmavo used for the link
than overloading an existing one, unless you can clearly establish that the
grammatical and semantic role is identical.  I am NOT sure that relative clauses
are a model for this becuase they suggest that one of the sumti being attached
to the tag is subordinate to the other, which is not the general case.

Veijo has done an admirable job of turning ideas into concrete YACC proposals,
even when he is not sure he favors the proposal.  I commend these efforts,
and would like to know in particular what he can do with this idea.

lojbab