From - Thu Feb 15 10:22:41 1996 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id GAA21328 for ; Thu, 15 Feb 1996 06:31:30 -0500 Message-Id: <199602151131.GAA21328@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id F46A4B98 ; Thu, 15 Feb 1996 5:57:30 -0500 Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 05:52:40 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: sera'aku GEN: almost-PROPOSAL: intervals X-To: dwiggins@BFSEC.BT.CO.UK X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1465 >>> > >mi klama la glazgov. puza lo nanca belipimu > >> I still read this as a medium time before some 6 month period. I am sorry, >> but that is the way I learned the language, and this proposal changes it >> significantly. > >I think that that is "mi klama la glazgov. pulenu nanca belipimu zaku". >Surely the event should immediately follow PU and the distance immediately >follow ZA. Not sure whether you intend this, but the zaku is within the lenu clause - again a terminator may be needed. But to answer your question, yes the above is an alternate phrasing that I would interpret the same way, given a ku before the za, BUT there is nothing that says that the presence of a "za" right after the pu, changes the interpretation of what follows the pu. The "za" is modifying the pu, and not talking about the tagged sumti directly. It is possible to have complex tense-tagss that have multiple zi/za/zu/ze'i/ze'a/ze'u in them, and you do not want to rely on whichever the tense grammar makes to fall in final position to be the determining factor in deciding what specifically is the relationship of the sumti to everything else. If the grammar had been such that *"zapu" meant what "puza" means as a tag, people would not be assuming that the "za" instead of the "pu" governed the sumti, but the "za" in final position is an artifact of the tense grammar and NOT an indication of greater relevance to the sumti. lojbab