Subject: [lojban] interactions between tenses, other tenses, and NA

From: Adam Raizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 05:01:44 +0200

On IRC, a discussion of the interaction between tenses in front of the
selbri, floating tenses, and NA came up. I think that it is clear that
if we can agree on a way to move all of these to the prenex, we can
agree on their meaning. The Book, ch. 16, sec.9 (p.401) says:

"To represent a bridi negation using a prenex, remove the ``na'' from
before the selbri and place ``naku'' at the left end of the prenex.
This form is called ``external bridi negation'', as opposed to
``internal bridi negation'' using ``na''. The prenex version of
Example 9.1 is

"9.2) naku zo'u la djan. klama
It is not the case that: John comes.
It is false that: John comes."

On the other hand, ch. 10. sec. 13 (p. 234) says:

"13.5) puku mi ba klama le zarci
[past] I [future] go-to the market.
Earlier, I was going to go to the market.

"Here there are two tenses in the same bridi, the first floating free
and specified by ``puku'', the second in the usual place and specified
by ``ba''. They are considered cumulative in the same way as the two
tenses in separate sentences of Example 13.4. Example 13.5 is
therefore equivalent in meaning, except for emphasis, to:

"13.6) mi puba klama le zarci
I [past] [future] go-to the market.
I was going to go to the market."

and so it would seem that tenses are different, in that they get
placed in the prenex in the order in which they appear relative to
other tenses, whether or not they are directly in front of the selbri
or floating, but NA directly in front of the selbri always moves to
the left side of the prenex.

Finally, the book mentions the interaction between tenses and NA in
ch. 5, sec. 13 (p. 104):

"Various combinations of tense and bridi negation cmavo are permitted.
If both are expressed, either order is permissible with no change in
meaning:

"13.3) mi na pu klama le zarci
mi pu na klama le zarci
It is false that I went to the market.
I didn't go to the market."

If indeed tenses directly before the selbri do not go to the front of
the prenex along with NA, then constructions such 'roroi na broda' are

equivalent to 'na roroi broda', and both mean 'not always', rather
than the first having the obvious and logical meaning of 'always not',
i.e. 'never'.

'na' can be interspersed among tenses, and I thought that this was to
allow constructions such as 'roroi na' = 'always not', 'ka'e na' = 'is
capable of not', etc. If NA must move to the front of the prenex, but
tenses don't, then what is the point of having NA interspersed with
tenses? Therefore, I think that tenses work the same as NA, with
everything directly in front of the selbri moving to the left side of
the prenex in the same order as they were before the selbri, followed
by sumti and floating tenses in the order they appear in the bridi. So
I think that the example from chapter 10 is wrong, since it ignores
the different scope that tenses directly before the selbri have, and
the example from chapter five is referring to the interaction between
'na' and 'pu', where there really is no change in meaning, but with
tenses like 'roroi', you need to consider the order that the tenses
and the na appear in.

Does anyone object to this? Could anyone *really* think that 'roroi na
broda' means 'not always brodas' (i.e. 'sometimes doesn't broda')? Can
we get a (quasi-)official pronouncement from Cowan?

mu'o mi'e .adam.