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Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 11:50:37 +0300
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To: The Lojban List <lojban@egroups.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Opposite of za'o
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From: Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@MATH.BAS.BG>

Jorge Llambias wrote:
> These have been proposed before:
> 
> still: pujeca
> no longer: pujecanai
> already: punaijeca
> not yet: punaijecanai
> 
> But to me they miss the most fundamental component
> of these words, the "beyond expectation" part.
> These should not be mere time tenses [...]

Quite right, but they're not mere aspects either. The pragmatic
content is crucial. Though it's a special sort of `expectation'
that's involved here. It's a case of contrasting the situation
in the world that's being talked about and an alternative one,
but without any commitment as to whether the alternative world
is what either the speaker or the hearer actually expects.

> "still" certainly has a component of "beyond expectation",
> and the expectation is completion for actions that could be
> completed.

I'm afraid that doesn't follow (and so the rest of the argument
doesn't either). `Is dinner ready? -- No, it's still cooking.'
(Certainly not overcooking.) Emphasis on real-world {ca'o}
({pu'omo'u}, {pu'oco'u}) in contrast to hypothetical {ba'o}
and {za'o}. This is what we need to express.

> Maybe {za'o} won't do for every single case of "still",
> but mostly it sure does.

I'm not sure what `mostly' can mean here -- afaik no one has
counted the {za'o}able and un{za'o}able uses of _still_ and
compared the numbers, and without that it would be equally
justified to say `Maybe {za'o} will do for the odd case of
_still_, but mostly it sure doesn't'. (This is not what I
am saying either.)

--Ivan