Subject: Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:47:32 +0200

Jorge Llambias wrote:
> 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_.

By George, what a disgraceful error. _ir_, _ir_, _ir_, _ir_, _ir_
(995 more times to go).

> or maybe you were thinking of the imperative, where _anda a_
> can indeed replace _ve a_, but only in that mode, weird.

More likely I was thinking of Italian, where _and-_ and _v-_
have fallen together into a single suppletive paradigm
(infinitive _andar(e)_, indicative 3sg. _va_).

> >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.

We can agree to disagree on that.

> >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.

How about `almost not'? (`almost fail' = `barely succeed'.)

> > > [...] 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.
> >
> ><shrug> 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

There is that -- to an extent. But I'm also too much in love with
the idea of Lojban as a literal kind of language where all markers
(and other words) mean what they're meant to mean.

--Ivan