Re: [lojban] Should I quit learning Lojban?

Retrofuture is the past version of the future; the structural forms often end up being used for some kind of subjunctive: Eng; "would" = "will" + -D. The basic tense is present (the only "real" one). This is duplicated to the future (the affectable one), then this pair is duplicated in the past ("retro") for reporting on previous presents. Arrows related events to axes, so talk about past, present and future events which involve axial existents and are relevant to the axis. There do not seem to be universal patterns of spatial tenses (indeed, the notion is strictly nonsensical, since there is no time in spatial relations -- this side of building relativity).
I, alas, don't know Hebrew, so I can't say what its worldview is like. The teeinsy bit I've had explained to me looks SAE, however, just not European.
No, the only elements of the second sort of languages are properties, which overlap [the wrong word here, but I can't remember the right one] or not in varying degrees (sorry, they changed the rules on relative clauses on me between high school and now). So the classic Logic 1 sentence would be "Mortality humanity" with maybe some minor hook in there (but I don't know any such languages so don't quite know how it goes).
.

From: Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2013 6:53 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Should I quit learning Lojban?

On Thursday, April 25, 2013 10:38:51 John E Clifford wrote:
> Don't know about walls and benches. The four points (axes) are Present,
> Future, Retropresent ("Past") and Retrofuture and the three arrows are
> Retrospective, Prospective and Immediate, radiating from each axis. All
> axes are displacements for Present, all vectors are views from an axis. No
> language has the whole system intact and purely tense (I couldn't get it
> into Lojban, alas -- or logic either). It keeps slopping over into aspects
> and subjunctives (as in most familiar languages). Logically, the crucial
> factors here are that different axes have different extensions of "exist"
> and events vectored from an axis involve existents of that axis, while
> events at displaced axes may involve things existing then but not at
> Present (in particular). All sorts of other restrictions and violations
> occur, but this is the basic stuff.

How is retrofuture different from past? What is "retropresent" supposed to
mean? What do the arrows do? What about spatial tenses?

> From the orthodox chat, the crucial thing about SAE languages is their
> Fregean semantics, the world consists of things with holes and things to
> plug the holes, giving a metaphysics of isolated (and generally
> characterless) individuals and properties (etc.) that they take on. This
> contrasts with languages which go for properties only that intersect and
> overlap and absorb, and those which simply have processes, and perhaps
> those which merely have instantaneous sensations. The existence of
> languages of any of these types is questionable and the question may well
> be unintelligible, but without it, there is no SWH.

What is the world of Hebrew like? That's the only non-SAE natlang that I know
a fair bit of.

By "properties only that intersect ..." do you mean "lo ckaji poi po'o kruca
..."? The only restriction on the properties is that they intersect and
overlap and absorb? I would not normally put "only" there, and it took me a
while to figure out what it means.

Pierre
--
lo ponse be lo mruli ku po'o cu ga'ezga roda lo ka dinko

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.