Re: TECH: new ZAhO suggestion

[C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK]

> From: And Rosta <ucleaar@uk.ac.ucl>
> Subject:     Re: TECH: new ZAhO suggestion

 This is politely put! What I was suggesting was that there is a need
> (which may already be satisfied by some existing lojban locution) to
> refer to some entity that may be a part of some larger entity. So,
> for example, when stating one's current age one might say "my life
> has a duration of (at least) 40 years", without implying that one
> dies at the age of 40. This relates to John Cowan and the goat's
> legs. Apparently, in lojban "This goat has 2 legs" means it has
> exactly 2 legs: as we noted, it would be nice to be able to say
> "this goat has at least 2 legs".
>
> Note that a translation of "at least" is not in itself sufficient:
> if one were exactly 40 ten years ago, and wished to state this,
> it would not be enough to say "10 years ago I had a duration of
> at least 40 years".
>
> I presume that it is possible to refer to all or part of some
> object, set, event or whatever. I am suggesting the need for
> a way to refer to some object/set/event/... without specifiying
> whether one is referring to its entirety or only to part of it.
>

As the 'goat' discussion showed, with numerical quantifiers, an explicit
number is total.
        li re
as a sumti means two, and not more, whereas you can explicit make it imprecise:
        li su'ore       at least two
        li ji'ire       about two


Quantifiers are the same, but subjective pseudo-numbers are very common (indeed
they are the default in most cases)

so:     le prenu        means   ro le su'o prenu
   "all the at-least one persons (that I mean)"
        lo prenu        means   su'o lo ro prenu
   "at least one of all the persons (that exist)"
        loi prenu       means   pisu'o loi ro prenu
   "at least some part of the mass of all persons (that exist)"
        lo'i prenu      means   piro lo'i ro prenu
   "the whole of the set of all persons"   (I think)
and similarly for "lei" and "le'i"

Thus for objects expressed as selgadri (descriptions), the default is either
the whole or some part, but these can always be overridden by explicit
quantifiers.

For tenses, other than ZAhO, the selbri is expressly not limited to the
tensed part of it.  Thus "ba" means that the selbri will hold at some point
in the future - it says nothing about how often or over how long an interval,
nor whether it has held in the past or does so now. As I understand it, even
using ZEhA and VEhA this is true:

        "mi baze'u gleki"
says that there is an long period at least partly in the future over which
I will be happy - it does not rule out my happiness in the past, nor disjoint
periods of happiness in past, present and future.

Even    "mi canaijebaze'uca gleki"
which says that I am not happy now but will be over a long period in the future
starting now, does not say anything about the past, or about times even
further in the future.

The one set of expressions which by definition express limitations on the
temporal or spatial extent of a bridi is ZAhO. Even there, not all do: "ca'o"
for example says that I am at a point within the bridi - not at the beginning
or the end.  I presume that
        mi caze'aca'o gleki
means that I am currently experiencing a medium-length period of happiness
within a longer span (though it may be only very slightly longer).

In fact the hard thing seems to me to be delimiting the bridi precisely. It
may be that this is what "co'i" does, but I'm not sure.


So turning to your examples:
  - perfective: 'he lived for only 20 yrs'
        ko'a (pu)co'i nanca li reno             (???)

  - imperfective-A: 'he lived for at least 20 yrs'
        ko'a (pu)nanca li (su'o)reno
  - imperfective-B+perfective: 'he is in the middle of a life of 20
                                years' duration'
        ko'a (ca)ca'o nanca li (su'o)reno
  - imperfective-B+imperfective-A: 'he is in the middle of a 20-year portion
                                    of his life'
        ko'a (ca)ca'oca'o nanca li su'oreno   (??? It's grammatical, but is
                                                this what it means?)

Does this answer your question?

                        Colin