Re: [lojban] JAI/BO was: Attitudinal scales

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Thursday 13 May 2010 21:11:30 Michael Turniansky wrote:
> I don't know, it always seems to me like JAI BAI and JAI SELBRI don't
> really function in quite the same way, meaningwise.  (And what exactly does
> JAI PU do?  Does anyone use it?  Examples?)

I think "jai selbri" is equivalent to "jai do'e selbri". As to "jai 
<tense-marker>", consider "jai ru'u":
mi jai ru'u vofli fai loi cmasfani (I am surrounded by flying gnats / I am 
flown around by gnats) =
ru'u mi cu vofli fa loi cmasfani (Around me fly gnats)
"jai pu" does make sense if the subject is an event or time:
lo nu kunzba cu jai pu rokcedra
(This is hard to translate. It's like an antipassive, except it isn't.)
"Smelting was *past-ed by the Stone Age"?
"Smelting was *Stone-Aged before it happened"?
The un-jai-ed version, "pu lo nu kunzba cu rokcedra", is much easier: "Before 
smelting was the Stone Age". The difficulty of translating JAI PU, at least 
into accusative languages and probably into ergative languages as well, 
probably explains why it isn't used much.

Pierre
-- 
.i toljundi do .ibabo mi'afra tu'a do
.ibabo damba do .ibabo do jinga
.icu'u la ma'atman.

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