[lojban-beginners] Re: Tenses in abstractions

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 10:34 PM, Sam Chapin <not.here.now@gmail.com> wrote:
> Minimiscience's view is the one described in chapter 10 of the online
> draft reference grammar. Is this other reimagining of ZI and VA widely
> used?

I use it a lot, and I have seen others use it. I think it is used more
than the CLL version, except perhaps for "vi", which is sometimes used
as if it meant "bu'u".

> It breaks the {<tag> broda} == {<tag> ku broda} identity that
> holds for everything else.

How so? That identity holds for both versions.

> Don't termsets solve the problem of asking for a magnitude? e.g.
> {PU/FAhA nu'i da lu'a ma nu'u}

That would have to be {nu'i PU/FAhA da la'u ma nu'u}, otherwise you
get {PU/FAhA ku nu'i da la'u ma nu'u} with "da" filling a regular
sumti slot.

The CLL has a couple of errors where it explains that, notice it
should be "la'u", not "lu'a", and a tag cannot be used to tag a whole
termset.

But termsets have a different function, all they really indicate is
that the two terms belong in the same bridi, not that they go together
in any other sense.

> N.B.: Before looking it up, I would have guessed you could ask
> {PU/FAhA cu'e broda} and hope for a response from ZI/VI, but the
> refgram says that ("The only way to combine {cu'e} with other tense
> cmavo is through logical connection"). Why? What would it break to
> allow cu'e in a compound tense?

Nothing, really. That's part of the reson for the tag proposal:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Internal+grammar+of+tags

Still, there would be no reason to expect that the response to
"PU/FAhA cu'e" should come from ZI/VA, it could come from any other
tag selma'o, like ZAhO, KAhE, etc.

"cu'e" is not a very useful question, the answers can be too disparate
to really know what someone is asking with it. A better way to ask for
a displacement magnitude (with my system) is with "pu za ma", "how
long ago?", "va ma", "how far away?"

mu'o mi'e xorxes