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[lojban-beginners] Re: staying aloft

On 12/30/06, Cortesi <dcortesi@mindspring.com> wrote:

>
> {ze'a ma} means "for how long?", so:
>    ze'a ma ma'a vofli

ga'inai, but my innocent reading of the cmavo list did
not lead me to think so:


The cmavo list is not the best place to figure out how to use a cmavo,
the definitions are usually too condensed. At best it can serve as a
reminder. For tenses as sumti tcita see CLL, chapter 10, section 12:
<http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=188>


This novice supposed {ze'ama} would mean
"medium time interval when?"
with a response of a tense cmavo.


It would be "medium time interval what?", although I'd say "neutral",
or better nothing, rather than "medium".


Except that, I gather, ma always requests a sumti,
not a tense, in response.


Right.


If as you say {ze'a ma} is valid, I don't get how
the general idea of fill-in-this-blank questions
works in that case. How would I stick a response
sumti into a tense?

       ze'a ma ma'a vofli
       ze'a pano se mentu ma'a vofli
               [medium-duration 10-minutes we-all fly]


Better:   ze'a lo mentu be li pano ma'a vofli

"A ten minute period", rather than "ten (one) minute periods".


Doesn't that say something like ten-minutes are
flying using propulsion we-all?


No, only untagged sumti fill the numbered slots of the selbri. Tagged
sumti can go in any order:

     ze'a lo mentu be li cino ma'a vofli
     = ma'a ze'a lo mentu be li pano cu vofli
     = ma'a vofli ze'a lo mentu be li pano



In the refgram I read about {roi} and quantified
tenses, but this only seems to extend to number-of-times,
(mi reroi klama == I two-times go) I don't see any
way to get specific about time intervals inside the
context of a tense.


There is this example:

12.12)  loi snime cu carvi ze'u le ca dunra
   some-of-the-mass-of snow rains [long time interval] the [present] winter.
   Snow falls during this winter.


Tho maybe in conversation, cu'e would work:

       ma'a cu'e vofli?
               [we-all what time/space? fly]
       ri mentu pano
               [prior-sumti minutes-duration-is 10]


But {ri} there would point to {ma'a}, not to {lo nu ma'a vofli}.


That is not a grammatical response, which should be a tense,

       ui ze'i
               [not very dam' long!]

But it does answer the question indirectly.


Yes, but in that case the question is not really just about duration. {cu'e}
is a very imprecise question, maybe that's why nobody ever seems
to use it.

mu'o mi'e xorxes