Subject: pe BAI <sumti> on tense markers

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:37:07 -0400

I've figured out what "pe BAI" means, as opposed to "be BAI", in at least one 
instance, "ba'i".

a. ko'e zbasu le dinju lo staku be seba'i lo rokci
(The brick was made of something else instead of stone, maybe.)
b. ko'e zbasu le dinju lo staku pe seba'i lo rokci
(The tower was made of brick instead of of stone. This is the right grammar - 
I was going to say "construction", but it wasn't the right construction, 
because God was displeased with it.)
c. ko'e zbasu le dinju lo staku seba'i lo rokci
(The making of the building was a substitute for a stone. This is unclear, 
and might be interpreted as b or as "ko'e zbasu le dinju, peseba'i lo rokci, 
le staku".)

To say "instead" without saying instead of what, one can say "peseba'iku".

In the Book (or at least the webpages) there is a sentence in which a BAI 
phrase semantically modifies not a verb, not a noun, but a tense marker:

le verba mo'i ri'u cadzu le bisli ma'i vo'a (Chapter 10, verse 8.3)

Since "ma'i vo'a" modifies "mo'iri'u", not the bridi as a whole, it should be 
"le verba mo'iri'uku pema'i vo'a cadzu le bisli". This, however, is 
ungrammatical, at least according to jbofi'e. Is there a reason why it won't 
work?

phma