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Re: [lojban] Tenseless predicates mean -able?





On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 9:56 AM, TR NS <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:
I just read section 3.8 of Loglan 1. In it JCB talks about how the tenseless predictions entail the concept of *can*. For example, he gives the word {ditca} as meaning "X teaches Y to W". Then he gives the example:

    Da fu ditca

Where "fu" converts the 1st and 3rd places. Translated into Lojban (which has as different order) I think it is:

    da se ctuca

JCB says it means "X is teachable" and goes on to reinforce the concept that, lacking a tense operator, the predicate entails the meaning of *can*. Quote, "For in Loglan the fundemental thing about an object is not whether it *has* been eaten or taught, but whether it is the kind of thing that *can* be eaten or taught." I see no mention of this idea in Lojban's grammar, and in Lojban I would translate it as "X is a student". Those translations are similar but certainly not the same thing.

Did I miss something? Which is correct?

This is about modality, not tense. See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tense%E2%80%93aspect%E2%80%93mood for the distinction between tense aspect and mood, that Lojban tries not to conflate.

Consider for example:

ko'a pu ka'e se ctuca
He was teachable.

ko'a ca ka'e se ctuca
He is teachable.

ko'a ba ka'e se ctuca
He will be teachable.

It's interesting what the Wikipedia article on tense-aspect-mood says about creoles, because it seems to apply quite well to Lojban too:

<<
Creoles, both Atlantic and non-Atlantic, tend to share a large number of syntactic features, including the avoidance of bound morphemes. Tense, aspect, and mood are usually indicated with separate invariant pre-verbal auxiliaries. Typically the unmarked verb is used for either the timeless habitual or the stative aspect or the past perfective tense–aspect combination. In general creoles tend to put less emphasis on marking tense than on marking aspect. Typically aspectually unmarked stative verbs can be marked with the anterior tense, and non-statives, with or without the anterior marker, can optionally be marked for the progressive, habitual, or completive aspect or for the irrealis mood. In some creoles the anterior can be used to mark the counterfactual. When any of tense, aspect, and modality are specified, they are typically indicated separately with the invariant pre-verbal markers in the sequence anterior relative tense (prior to the time focused on), irrealis mode (conditional or future), non-punctual aspect.
>>

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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