Subject: Re: [lojban] Logical translation request

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 02:25:30

la adam cusku di'e

>I've sometimes wanted to change the interpretation to how you do it,
>but need to be able to say "now", etc. is too important.

I guess that's why {nau} was introduced, though nobody seems
to be using it.

>I suppose it's a question of interpretation of sentences like "ca le
>nu mi penmi do kei mi pu klama le zarci". English would interpret it
>as "When I met you, I went to the store." (i.e., the two events are
>coincident in time). Maybe Lojban should interpret the "ca" as
>redefining the reference-point, and thus the sentence should be "When
>I met/will meet you, I had gone/will have gone to the store." But
>then, how would you get the first interpretation back? (that they're
>coincident in time, and they take place in the past.)

My understanding is that tenses behave like negation in this respect,
so the selbri tcita {pu} is like a {puku} at the start of the bridi:
{puku ca le nu mi penmi do kei mi klama le zarci}, which gives the
first interpretation. For the other interpretation you'd have
to say {ca le nu mi penmi do kei puku mi klama le zarci}

I don't think this has ever been explored much. But it can't
be very different from that because {na} can mingle with tenses
in selbri tcita, and it would be odd if one had bridi scope and
the others didn't.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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