Re: On the tense system

[Mr Andrew Rosta <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

> The simple explanation of the ZAhO tenses is to look at a non-instantaneous
> event.  ba'o is the time after the event, pu'o is the time before the
> event.  All of the other ZAhO tenses are similarly tied to an interval
> of the even actually occurring, which I picture like this
>
> pu'o     -> |   <----   ca'o    ---> | <-- ba'o
>             |                        |
>
> The metaphor of the pictured event far predated the Imaginary Journeys
> metaphor, and led tot he assignments of cmavo.  pu'o like pu refers to
> the time before the event, ba'o like ba refers to the time after the event.
> Unfortunately in actual usage people don't seem to be referring to events
> when they use the contours, and the result is that the tags seem backwards.

I note that I recently used "cacaho" to refer to an event located at
a stretch of time that includes the present, rather than to locate
one event with respect to another. What I was after was a "present
+ imperfective" form, though I can find nothing glossed "imperfective"
in the most recent cmavo list. Actually my preference for how to
express this would be for "leinu broda" to be an argument of "ca".
Any suggestions about how do this?

------
mihelahocte. And cte.