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Re: more on vi/fa'a/to'o



la lojbab cusku di'e

> >> If I read it correctly, "vi le ckule zu'a(vi/va?) lo mitre be li cino"
> >> should mean 30 meters left of the school, if Cowan doesn't contradict me
> >> on how we interpret such a multiple tense-tagged sumti.
> >
> >What?!!!
>
> Imaginary journeys need vectors which distances+directions.

Agreed. VAs are the distances and FAhAs the directions.

> Start "at"
> the school (a tensed sumti can override the space-time reference
> locally.

Agreed. That is what the tense paper says. The sumti is the origin,
both for VAs and for FAhAs.

> Then shift "left" 30 meters - a distance and direction i.e.
> vector.

This is contrary to what the paper says. According to the paper
{zu'a lo mitre} means "left of the one meter thing", not "one meter
to the left of the origin".

(1)     ko'a zu'ava kelci
        They play a medium distance to the left (of the speaker).

According to you:

(2)     ko'a kelci zu'a lo mitre be li cino va le ckule
        They play 30 meters to the left of the school.

I think it makes more sense to say:

(3)     ko'a kelci zu'a le ckule va lo mitre be li cino
        They play to the left of the school, a distance of 30 meters.

According to the tense paper, neither your version nor mine are right.

Yours (2) really means (according to the paper): "They play to the left
of the 30 meter thing, some distance from the school."

Mine (3) really means (according to the paper): "They play to the left of
the school, some distance from the 30 meter thing."

The paper does not say how to say "30 meters to the left of the school".

> In le verba cu kelci vi le ckule zu'a lo mitre be li cino
> The children are playing (imaginary journey: at the school, then left by/of
>       some 30 meter measure)

That doesn't agree with what the paper says. The complement of {zu'a}
according to the paper is the origin, i.e. to the left of what, not
how much to the left of something.

> le verba cu kelci zu'a lo mitre be li cino
> The children play to-the-left of some 30 meter measure.
>
> because there is less context to restricts the "lo mitre" from "da poi
> mitre"

So the presence or absence of {vi le ckule} completely changes the meaning
of {zu'a lo mitre}? Sometimes it means "to the left of the one meter thing",
and sometimes it means "one meter to the left of something"?

> The second sentence would work with "le mitre", forcing specificity, by
> using "le mitre" in the first sentence when specificity is provided by
> context, would seem to me to emphasize the non-veridicality of the
> description.

What non-veridicality? If the distance is really one meter, then in both
cases it is veridical.

> Does this make more sense.

You are giving two different meanings to {zu'a lo mitre}. If you can do
that, then I prefer to give two meanings to {va lo mitre}.


> If you have 2 points, an origin O and a second point P, such as:
>
>              O                                P
>
> Then "towards point", seem like it would be between O and P

What would that be in Lojban? I don't follow.
Do you mean something like {fa'a le pipno}= "towards the piano"?

> And "away from point" seems like it would be to the left of O in the above
> diagram.

Would that be {to'o le pipno}?

> zo'i and ze'o (approaching/receding) don't seem to have much meaning in
> a non-motion context - both suggest a radial line.

And do they have any meaning in a motion context different from fa'a/to'o?
(Maybe some combination with ne'i, as the keyword "inwards" suggests?)

> But the cmavo list, which I think was taken from Imaginary journeys,
> seems to have these backwards.
>
> zo'i in a non-motion sense seems to mean "nearer than", and "ze'o"
> "beyond" which pretty much seem to require a second point to be
> meaningful.  In which case zo'i is somewhere between O and P, and ze'o
> is somewhere to the right of P.

So {zo'i le pipno} is "this (the speaker's) side of the piano" and
{ze'o le pipno} is "beyond the piano"? Why are such misleading
keywords used, then?

> But fa'a and to'o in the non-motion
> sense are not glossed to invoke the other point and hence read like they
> are equivalently radial lines from O.

I'm not sure I understand that.

> Since all are defined primarily for motion, we COULD arbitrarily retify
> these meanings to cover all possibilities assuming that the FAhA is used
> to tag a point P.
>
> This would seem to me to give:
> to'o  left of O

Is that {to'o le pipno} = "away from me in a direction opposite to
the piano"? Why not just "away from the piano", in some unstated
particular direction?

> fa'a  between O and P

This one makes sense. {fa'a le pipno} = "towards the piano (from where
I stand)".


> zo'i  either non-specific radial of O, of P, or same as fa'a
> ze'o  either non-specific radial of O, of P, or right of P

What happenned to the "this side of the piano/beyond the piano" idea?

> On the other hand, only fa'a and to'o need necessarily invoke a P in
> order to have distinct meaning (fa'aku = zo'i to'oku = ze'o in motion
> and hence presumably in location usage).

This again doesn't make sense. It would seem that "this side of..." and
"beyond..." both need a reference point.

> I'll let others decide what they want the stationary forms to mean, as
> long as they are consistent with the motion meanings, whether they match
> what I just described.

Can you give the motion meanings, so that we know what they have to be
consistent with?

Jorge