From jjllambias@hotmail.com Tue Feb 8 15:59:10 2000
X-Digest-Num: 358
Message-ID: <44114.358.1954.959273826@eGroups.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2000 15:59:10 PST
From: "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 3 loaves

la ivAn cusku di'e
>Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > I think it makes sense. {za'o xagji} is grammatical,
> > so that seems to be the likeliest meaning.
>
>Something can be grammatical and still have no likely meaning.

That is true. My favourite example is the number {li pipaipi}

>There can be different ways of looking at this. The Codex says:
>`The span of time between the natural and the actual end points
>is represented by "za'o": {le xirma ca za'o jivna bajra} [...]
>which means that it ran past the finish line (after the race was
>over [...])'. That doesn't say if the same sentence could mean
>that the horse ran after a potential (though unnatural) end point
>-- something that could've made it stop (injury, loss of a shoe,
>loss of jockey, whatever).

I don't see the finish line as much more natural than an
injury or a lost shoe/jockey, what could be more artificial
than a finish line? They all seem like good would-be ending
points in the right context.

Something that the Book doesn't make explicit is how to
use {za'o} as sumti tcita. I use it to mark the expected
but unrealized ending point, for example:

le xirma cu bajra za'o le nu cirko le cutci
The horse kept running when it lost the shoe.


>I like Pycyn's way of putting it
>(`still around after its time is up'), but I'm not sure I know
>that the time of hunger is up when one has eaten.

It all depends on the context, I suppose. In this story,
it would seem very apropos.

>Or maybe {drata} means `another' (not the same one)
>and {frica} means `different' (not of the same kind). That
>is another parameter on which natlangs vary.

Yes, that's what they mean. I misunderstood you before,
I thought that was the difference you were pointing out
(I don't speak any German or Bulgarian).
Your lemonade example I think made it clear. Your mother
didn't want _another_ lemonade, to replace the one she had,
but _an additional_ lemonade, right?

Maybe something like {seljmina drata}, although that
introduces a maybe unwanted "additioner".

{za'umoi} could work too I suppose, but it is not
immediately obvious at least to me.

>Then there's a language-related stylistic thing: when talking
>of a recurring situations, some languages prefer to count
>(`ate a loaf ... ate a 2nd one ... ate a 3rd one') and others
>prefer not to (`ate a loaf ... one more ... and one more').

Really there are languages that prefer the first method?
It seems like more effort is involved for no obvious gain.

co'o mi'e xorxes


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