Re: On the tense system of ZAhO

[John Cowan <snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM>]

la kolin. cusku di'e

> I concur with Jorge that Bob is making a specious distinction
> in order to explain something that, on hindsight, was an
> error.

I, OTOH, believe that Bob has it exactly right.  "Ordinary tenses refer
to the space/time reference, whereas ZAhO tenses refer to the event itself."
Some version of that sentence will go in the next draft, and possibly
some of Bob's examples as well.

It is unfortunate that ZAhOs don't agree with PU/FAhA, but then they are
meant to serve different functions.  Remember that they describe
>interval< contours: they are part of the specification of the interval,
which also "refers to the event itself".  Thus VEhA describes the event's
extension in space without reference to the speaker (although the context
specifies what is large, what is small, and what is in-between).

The main difference between ZAhO and ZEhA/VEhA/VIhA/TAhE/-ROI is that ZAhOs
have a natural use as sumti tcita (they are in some sense 2-place) whereas
the others do not.

> ZAhO fit into imaginary journeys, but for historical reasons
> two of them were given words with inappropriate etymologies.

I think not.  The ZAhOs are built on an internally consistent pattern which
must (for reasons of inertia) and should (because of this internal
self-consistency) be preserved.

> It is true that they work differently from PU when used as sumti
> tcita, but that is not a reason to run the imaginary journey the
> wrong way.

The reason is that they characterize the event itself which lies at the
end of the journey.

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.