Re: Veijo once more on ZAhOs

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

la veion. cusku di'e

>   A PU tense or a PU/ZAhO tcita tells WHERE (or rather WHEN) the event is,
>   a ZAhO tense tells rather WHAT KIND (the phase of) the event is. The phase
>   is actually the event we are talking about, the event located with the PU
>   tense and characterized with the ZAhO 'tense'. There isn't anything else
>   to look/go to. There is no *future event, no past event, we are talking
>   about the phase event.

This part is sound; in fact, golden.

>   When there is no explicit ZAhO we can safely
>   assume an implicit "ca'o".

Well, often, perhaps, but not in every case.  We have to grok from context
what phase is meant.  It is possible to say "mi klama le zarci" and mean
"mi co'u klama le zarci" = "I've just gone to the store."

In particular, this lack of specificity is important in the second half
of your message, on which I have not provided detailed comments.  In the
case "mi ca citka pu'o le nu do klama mi", we don't know which phase of the
event "mi citka" is being said to be "pu'o le nu...".  We can guess that the
"ca'o" phase is probably meant, but we may be wrong.

The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity.

>   If I say "ko'a ca ba'o citka", I am NOT talking about the event of eating
>   (the ca'o citka) which would be a past event, but about the event of
>   *post-eating (ba'o citka). On an imaginary journey I am going NOWHERE
>   from the "ca" point, I already am at the destination. So it is a question
>   of characterizing, not a question of going somewhere as it would if I
>   had another PU tense instead of the ZAhO.

Again, entirely correct.

>   Actually I could have TWO PUs
>   to describe a continuation of the journey from the "ca" at which I am.
>   These would then define both the position and the extent of the ba'o citka
>   event.

This part is wrong, I think, but I may not understand.  The extent of an
event is expressed by ZEhA, with a possible following PU to indicate the
anchorage of the interval (past justified, future justified, or centered).

>   And perhaps we ought to go even further and not to use the word "tense"
>   when talking about ZAhOs?

Well, "tense" is a vague term in Lojban, with at least three senses:

1) PU specifically, the "simple tense selma'o".

2) The entire complex of PU/ZI/ZEhA/FAhA/VA/VEhA/VIhA/TAhE/-ROI/ZAhO/FEhE/MOhI
compound cmavo.

3) The use of any of these, or their syntactic equivalents BAI/FIhO, before
the selbri (or floating about the bridi when followed by KU), as opposed to
when used as sumti tcita.  "In 'mi bai klama le zarci', 'bai' is a tense,
not a sumtcita.", e.g.

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