[lojban-beginners] Re: The Prophet

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 8/7/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The Reference Grammmar says in Chapter 11.12: "The specific cmavo of
> NU and of ZAhO are mutually interdefining; the ZAhO contours were
> chosen to fit the needs of the NU event types and vice versa."

Yes, but does it clarify anywhere what is meant by that? In particular,
what need of the ZAhOs do the NU types fit?

I can see relationships between them, for example, that processes have
a natural ending point whereas states and activities normally don't.

I would also say that (normally) for any broda, {lo nu co'a broda},
{lo nu co'u broda}, {lo nu de'a broda}, and {lo nu di'a broda} are achievements,
{lo nu ba'o broda} and {lo nu pu'o broda} are states, and {lo nu ca'o broda}
and {lo nu za'o broda} are activities. I'm not certain about {lo nu mo'u broda},
I think it's an achievement but it could be argued it's a state.

There is no simple ZAhO that gives a process, although
{lo nu co'a broda gi'e ca'o broda gi'e co'u broda} would be a process.

But nothing there says that the ZAhO contours fit any needs of the NU
event types or vice versa.

...
> {mi pensi le nu xanka} says that I'm thinking/worrying about the
> overall happening of such an event in which I get and keep being
...
> {mi pensi le za'i xanka}, on the other hand, says that I'm worrying
> particularly about the state in which I am (will be) nervous, implying
...

I doubt you can convey that distinction just with {nu}. If you really want
to convey that you are concerned with the process of getting nervous,
you probably should talk about {lo nu xanka binxo}. I don't think I would
interpret anything very different from {mi pensi le za'i xanka} if you say
{mi pensi le nu xanka}.

But even if you did manage to convey that subtle distinction, the question
still remains as to whether it is such a frequent distinction that it has to be
grammaticalized. In that case, we would always have to use
za'i/zu'o/pu'u/mu'e as default and only resort to {nu} when we want to
express some subtle deviation from the expected lexical aspect. But {nu}
is in fact the default one.

mu'o mi'e xorxes