Re: pa/ba case tags

la nitcion. cusku di'e:
> The problem, lojbanis, is this. In a case tag of selma'o BAI, the semantics
> of the tag relates to the tagged phrased, not to the entire phrase. Thus
> 
> mi ciska bai lenu mi bebna
> I write coz I'm stoopid,
> 
> that which is doing the forcing (lo bapli) is the subordinate phrase, lenu mi
> bebna, and that which is forced (lo se bapli) is the main bridi, mi ciska.
> In 
> 
> mi ciska sebai lenu mi bebna
> I write, making me stoopid
> 
> that which is being forced (lo se bapli) is the subordinate phrase.

Perfectly correct.  jimc, take note please.

> [T]he tense case tags, pu and ba, are used analogously to BAI. Then I would
> interpret
> 
> pu lenu mi se jbena kei mi morsi
> 
> as:
> 
> Main statement: mi morsi - I'm dead.
> Subordinate:	what is being the past (lo purvi) is lenu mi se jbena - I'm 
> born. In other words, I interpret the pu as offsetting the subordinate from
> the main, and not vice versa.

This interpretation is plausible and superficially appealing.  The trouble
arises when we try to say what "pu" and "ba" mean as tense adverbs.
If "pu <sumti>" means "<sumti> is earlier than the main bridi", then
"pu" alone (either as "puku", or in tense position before the selbri --
these mean the same thing) must mean "[something-unspecified] is earlier
than the main bridi", or "the main bridi is later than [something]".
And so "mi pu klama" winds up meaning that "mi klama" is later than something
(viz. the speaker's present) rather than the reverse.  This is not what
we want.

Therefore, the official view is that when tenses are used as sumti tcita, the
tcita sumti specifies the reference point.  So

	mi pu morsi
	I was dead.
	puku mi morsi
	Earlier, I'm dead.
	mi morsi pu le nu mi se jbena
	I'm dead earlier-than the event-of I'm born
	I died before I was born.

> Should we keep it like this? I don't know any Chinese, but isn't that language
> taken with 'main claims' rather than baroque links, and wouldn't the Chinese
> (and the lojbanis) consider it more logical to offset things like I said?

I suspect this refers to the Chinese semantic rule called "iconic tense
sequence", where "I I died after I was born" is considered ill-formed,
and must be replaced by "I was born before I died".
In other words, what comes first in time must come first in the sentence
as well.  Lojban has no such restriction.

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