Subject: Re: [lojban] space tenses

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 04:32:39 EDT

In a message dated 8/13/2002 7:59:15 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> pc:
> > [email-masked] writes:
> > Actually it does: "nau" is an absolute tense cmavo meaning "here and 
> now".
> > 
> > Nah, that's a modal or tense meaning, "at the speaker axis," not a 
> > name at all or simti in general at all. 
> >>

Not bad. It is strictly the sentence uttered at here-and-now, not 
here-and-now itself (as 20:16 CDT is the time of h-n-n, not what it is the 
time of). But it is the most visible/audible thing to hook deixis on -- for 
deixis does need a stable hook. Just as a tense system does. And without 
either a name for h-n-n or the natural rule of Lojban tenses, the predicates 
system for tenses (et al) won't work (somebody's paper on somebody else's 
paper in the early 1960's -- probably Barbara Partee and maybe James McCawley 
in that order).