From jjllambias@hotmail.com Sat Aug 10 08:01:04 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 76865 invoked from network); 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.239) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Sat, 10 Aug 2002 08:01:03 -0700 Received: from 200.69.6.19 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Sat, 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 GMT To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Bcc: Subject: Re: [lojban] space tenses Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Aug 2002 15:01:03.0518 (UTC) FILETIME=[BF0D6BE0:01C2407E] From: "Jorge Llambias" X-Originating-IP: [200.69.6.19] X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=6071566 X-Yahoo-Profile: jjllambias2000 la pycyn cusku di'e ><< > > I have a problem with {vi} here, since I use it to mark distance > > magnitude rather than position, but since that is another > > discussion I will just change to another example. Let's > > say {re'o le birjanco}. > >> >Usually I can see some reason for your unlojban, but this one escapesme, >since we have perfectly good metrics and nothing else that does points. >Another time, maybe. Au contraire! We have at least two ways to do points: {bu'u} and {di'o}. {bu'u} was introduced explicitly as the space equivalent of {ca}. On the other hand, VA are the only way to do magnitude of displacements that I know of. Well, ok, there's the termset contraption with {la'u} presented in the Book (end of chapter 10), but that's ugly and unnecessary, since VA are the natural choice for that: la frank sanli zu'a la djordj va lo mitre be li mu Frank stands left of George medium-distance of 5 meters. Frank stands five meters to the left of George. la frank zu'a sanli va lo mitre be li mu Frank stands five meters to the left. >As I said, temporal tenses are worse. About the time my lst message went >out, I awoke seeing clearly that that message was confused, confusing and >in >large measure wrong. All the tenses place the event in the sentnece >relative >to the axis in the appropriate way. Yes. In the case of the aspectuals it is not so much a placement relative to an axis as a selection of the phase we're concentrating on. But in any case it is a phase of the main event, not a phase of an event within the tagged sumti. >The common (I trust xorxeson this) usage >of inchoative and perfective seems to put the axis relative to the event -- >and the blurb lends itself readily to that interpretation. I can't say how common that usage is. I don't think people use it that much, and I discourage it as much as I can, but it has been the official interpretation, and there are even examples in the Book: {mi klama le zarci pu'o le nu mi citka} is interpreted as {mi klama le zarci ca le nu mi pu'o citka} instead of as {mi pu'o klama le zarci ca le nu mi citka}. As you say, the blurb tends to force that interpretation, but it is a weird usage if you analyze it carefully. >But it should not >be -- the fact that, relative to the event, the inchoative is past, does >not >mean that inchoative is a past kind of tense (nor mirrorly for the >perfective), but rather that it is a future one, since it is the axis to >event direction that counts always. So, it is the axis which lies in the >event contour in question and so, as xorxes says, Nick has asked people to >be >building up to the work on 9/20 (and presumably actually doing it by 10/1 >and >finishing by ?). Well, he did provide an English version, so probably nobody was confused. He also used {ba'o} a couple of times with the "in the aftermath of ..." sense rather than in the "having been done by time ..." sense. >As usual, when xorxes isn't unlojbanic, he is right -- and >often when he at first seems unlojbanic as well. [I have the distinct >feeling that I have been on the wrong side of this issue in the past but >can't find the cases at the moment; The most intense discussions on this, as I remember, I had with Lojbab, and they were before you joined the list, and also before the Book was published. Obviously I did not manage to convince him. >{za'o} as a sumti tcita should introduce >where/when one has actually gotten to, not what one has overshot.] I use it to introduce the time when the overshooting is produced, the point when the "natural end" of the event should have taken place. For example: {ko'a zvati le purdi za'o le nu co'a carvi}, "he keeps being in the garden as it begins to rain", i.e. a kind of {za'o zvati}. mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx