Re: On the tense system

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

Colin writes:
> And further asks:
> ++++++++>
>  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?
> >+++++++++
> You tell me what 'imperfective' means and I'll tell you how to say
> it ;-)
> (Imperfective is often used to cover any or all of incomplete,
> repetitive and habitual)

Well, the normal answer would be "viewing an event as if from the
interior". But I think a better answer is that imperfectives
refer to a non-delimited portion of the event (i.e. the start
and end points are excluded from what is referred to). A spatial
analogue is if you want to say "I see the wall" meaning "I see
some but not necessarily all of the wall". In English "She was
running" and "There is milk on the floor" involve this idea -
an illimited mass of running or milk.

> Seriously though, I use ca ca'o to mean 'is now in the temporal
> interior of the extended event ...', which I suspect is what
> you are after.
> I think 'lei nu broda' is possible, but I anyway would probably
> be misled by the 'lei' into thinking your are intending to massify
> a number of probably disjoint events.

The mass problem rears its head again!

-----
mihelahomihe. And mihe.