[lojban] Tenses (was: Re: consolation)

[Martin Bays <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

cu'u la ba'e xorxes.
>
> --- Martin Bays <mbays@freeshell.org> wrote:
> > cu'u la xod.
>
> mi'e la xod na.e la xorxes u'i

.u'u.oiro'a tu'a me'o xy. cfipu

>
> > > Perhaps {lo nu broda cu mulno} <==> {ba'o mo'u broda}, since the
> > > LHS is tenseless so the RHS should be tenseless too.
> >
> > Hmmm... I see your point, but I'm not sure using multiple ZAhO in a single
> > tense gives a meaningful tense, at least in CLL Lojban.
>
> It is grammatical, why would it not be meaningful?
>
> CLL doesn't mention multiple ZAhO explicitly, but it does
> have a multiple number ROI example, which follows the same
> principle:
>
> >>Note the difference between:
> >>
> >>10.13)  mi pare'u paroi klama le zarci
> >>        I [first time] [one time] go-to the store.
> >>        For the first time, I go to the store once.
> >>
> >>and
> >>10.14)  mi paroi pare'u klama le zarci
> >>        I [one time] [first time] go-to the store.
> >>        There is one occasion on which I go to
> >>        the store for the first time.
>

OK, yes, it does say that. But roi and re'u don't belong to the same
*semantic* class - PAroi specifies an interval property, like TAhE, while
PAre'u is an event contour (referring to a cycle of a cyclical activity
(p.230)), like ZAhO.

And a couple of pages before those examples, we're told

'...from the viewpoint of Lojban syntax, ZAhOs are interval modifiers like
TAhEs or ROI compounds; if both are found in a single tense, the TAhE/ROI
comes first and the ZAhO afterward.'

Now it doesn't explicitly mention re'u, but I can't see any way in which
it makes sense to make an exception for it. You define a subset of the
time-line with PU, ZI, ZEhA, TAhE/PAroi; then you optionally specify how
that subset relates to the event of the bridi/seltcita sumti with ZAhO and
PAre'u.  That's my interpretation, anyhow, though I guess it might not be
the only consistent one.

Basically, I can see how multiple and out-of-place event contours could
mean what you and 10.13 want them to, but I think it needs an explicit
formal framework.

So I've come up with one. Please bear with me, I'm new at this lark. I
*think* this makes sense, but if it doesn't, sorry.

We can make complicated tenses by joining basic ones with cmavo from JOI -
cf. section 21. So first, let's define a JOI, JOI1, which works like this
when connecting tenses -
{Tense1 JOI1 Tense2} -- "Tense1 applied to (i.e.
	with event contours referring to) the event given by application
	of Tense2"

So e.g. {mi pu zu ze'u pu'o JOI1 ba zi co'a le nu badri cu gleki} would
mean "I for (a long time centered on a distant past point and contained
before the soon start of sadness) was/am happy".

(ce'o or sece'o might reasonably be decided to do the work of JOI1, but
that's not important.)

Then we can define that whenever a single tense contains an event-contour
term that's "out of place" according to the above rules - i.e. doesn't
appear at the extreme right end of the tense - then that term is followed
by an implicit JOI1.

So {mi pare'u paroi klama le zarci} ==
	{mi pare'u JOI1 paroi klama le zarci} --
	"[It now is] the first cycle of the activity of me going once to
	the store" --
	"For the first time I go to the store once"

And {ba'o mo'u broda} ==
	{ba'o JOI1 mo'u broda} --
	"[We are now in] the aftermath of the event of the completion of
	broda"

Which was what was wanted. Phew. OK. I think that works.

Ignore or destroy.

> > > Yes, I suppose that it has to work for activities too:
> > >
> > >    le nu mi bajra cu mulxadba ze'a le pamoi mentu gi'eku'i
> > >    mulno ze'a le drata temci
> > >    My running was half-hearted for the first minutes, but
> > >    to the full for the rest of the time.
> > >
> >
> > 'K. Though again, your non-CLL use of tense seems strange to me, however
> > useful.
>
> What's non-CLL about that?
>
> CLL:
> >>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.
>

But according to section 12, a sumtcita tense defines an interval using
the normal imaginary journeys system, but with the seltcita sumti as
starting point. So {ze'u le ca dunra} surely refers to a long interval
centred around the winter (glorking it as {ca ze'u le ca dunra}). So the
interval might be contained within the winter, might contain the winter,
or might overlap in some other way - but I don't see how it could
be consistently defined to necessarily be *precisely* the duration of the
winter.

So in fact your and the CLL's uses are fine in this case - it's a
reasonable assumption that exactly the whole interval is being referred
to. I only mentioned it because I think I've seen attempts to *define*
ZEhA as a sumtcita to always mean that, which I don't think works without
breaking other things.

I might be wrong.

mu'o mi'e maten.