A modest proposal re: tenses

[Dylan Thurston <dpt@abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Let me voice another premature opinion.

It seems to me that a tense like {zu'avi} expresses a relationship
between three things:  an area x1 to the left of the reference point x2,
a distance x3 (which should be small), and maybe a direction x4 (if you
want to be more precise about "to the left").  There ought to be a way
to express this relationship succintly as a selbri; something like what
{moi} and its relatives do for numbers.  Why not add another cmavo (with
its own selma'o) to serve this purpose?  (In this message, I'll
arbitrarily use {xoi}, as the only unassigned <C>oi cmavo left.)  This
would serve at least two purposes:

a) It would allow more complicated tenses, expressing a specific distance
and/or reference point (using di'o: {di'o lo be'avixoi be le ginka bei
cimitre}

b) It would allow you to succintly say something like "the area around
the oven", as I was wondering about:

        litru lo ru'uxoi be le toknu

(I still think the use of {litru} is appropriate here; I don't think
{litru} should carry the connotations of "long distance" that English
"travel" has.  Of course, as John suggested,

        mulni le toknu

is much better in this case.)

You could also precisely specify a location in reference to your current
position (the default x2 should be the current place, {lo cabu'u
zvacab}):

        le ri'uxoi be fi remitre

or "two meters to my left".

NOTES:
1) Of course, the same construction works for time or mixed tenses as
well.

2) But motion tenses don't seem to fit in quite as nicely, though perhaps
they still have meaning.

3) Some of the same holes could be plugged with another cmavo of selma'o
NU, a "position abstract"; then you could say, for instance, "the area
around the oven" with {sruri}, and perhaps using {mitre} in other cases.
{zvati} doesn't have enough places to be useful here.  (Naturally, we'd
need to resolve the {li'i} question first.)

4) I still see problems saying something like "two feet north and
five feet west".

co'o mi'e. dilyn.