Re: [lojban] srana zo za'o

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 12:27 AM, Jacob Errington <nictytan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> As for "for too long", I believe that's the ideal gloss for {za'o}. All the
> other ZAhO are about fundamentally temporal relations, and using them
> otherwise is metaphorical at best. We have {fe'e} to convert temporal tenses
> into spatial tenses, after all.

I think "for too long" is worse than "still" as a gloss because "for
too long" covers the whole interval of the event, while "za'o", like
"still", only applies to the extended part.

She slept for too long: the whole of her sleep lasted for too long.
She was still sleeping: her sleeping was at the stage when it might
have been expected that it would be over by then.

"ko'a pu za'o sipna" is the latter, not the former. Indeed the former
should more properly be done with a member of ZEhA (if there was one
for "too long"), not of ZAhO.

> As for incorrect uses of za'o as translating some instances of "still",
> {ca'o} is usually better in my experience.

I don't think "ca'o" ever really works for "still". "ko'a ca'o sipna"
means "she is sleeping", it can't distinguish "she is still sleeping"
from "she is already sleeping" for example. When looking at "za'o", it
is useful to consider it together with its dual, "xa'o" (already).

za'o = na xa'o na: "still"; "not yet not"; "any more", "any longer"
(in questions)
na za'o = xa'o na: "no longer", "not any more"; "already not"
xa'o = na za'o na: "already"; "no longer not"; "yet" (in questons)
na xa'o = za'o na: "not yet"; "still not"

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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