From jjllambias@hotmail.com Wed Mar 14 11:44:54 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 14 Mar 2001 19:44:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 40910 invoked from network); 14 Mar 2001 19:44:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 14 Mar 2001 19:44:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.207) by mta3 with SMTP; 14 Mar 2001 20:45:57 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Wed, 14 Mar 2001 11:44:52 -0800 Received: from 200.41.210.23 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Wed, 14 Mar 2001 19:44:52 GMT X-Originating-IP: [200.41.210.23] To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 19:44:52 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Mar 2001 19:44:52.0618 (UTC) FILETIME=[3CDC5EA0:01C0ACBF] From: "Jorge Llambias" la ivAn cusku di'e >But that's the English _be on the verge of_, which is not >necessarily the same thing as _be about to_ or _be going to_, >or Spanish _andar a_, or ... Actually _ir a_, or _estar por_. _Andar a_ only works for _andar a caballo_ and _andar a pie_... :) or maybe you were thinking of the imperative, where _anda a_ can indeed replace _ve a_, but only in that mode, weird. >all sorts of things in natlangs >that differ from selma'o ZAhO in that they were not expressly >constructed as event contour markers (and presumably nothing but). It still seems to me like a very good approximation. >The best thing seems to be a tanru with {jibni}, as brought up >by Pycyn in his followup to me. I'm not sure how much I like it. >In a better world there might be a cmavo for this, but there isn't. And also we don't have anything similar for "barely" yet. > > [...] if there is nothing better, then {pu'o} will almost > > inevitably take over, just as I think {za'o} will take over > > "still", even if not exactly right, for lack of better > > alternatives. > > That may happen, but if it does, to my mind it will be >exactly the same thing as if those meanings are assigned to cmavo >chosen at random. That's because you're too much in love with the contour markers and you don't want them to do any of the dirty work. But someone's got to do it! :) co'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.