Re: `already'

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la iVAN cusku di'e

> I vote against a specific ZAhO for `already'.  It is not an aspectual
> operator; it is orthogonal to the ZAhO scale ({pu'o} appears to be the
> only ZAhO whose meaning is incompatible with the idea of alreadiness).

I'm not sure what you mean by orthogonal. If you mean that it can be
combined with any other ZAhO, then that is already what happens between
any two ZAhO. I don't see why {pu'o} would be incompatible, either:

        ko'a xa'o pu'o cliva ca li bipi'ecino
        He was already about to leave at 8:30.

        i ko'a za'o pu'o cliva ca li papapi'e
        And he was still about to leave at 11:00.

What I mean for "already" is the counterpart to {za'o}, i.e. happening
before its expected/natural start.

> There's a lot of linguistic work on `already' and its cousins `still'
> and `finally' (I could provide references; there was a detailed study
> by J van den Auwera in _Linguistics and Philosophy_ about 2 years ago),
> and there's a lot of controversy, but people seem to agree that they
> characterise the event or state as taking place respectively sooner,
> longer and later than it might (than anticipated, than on some other
> occasion etc.)

I'm not sure how "finally" fits in there. "Already" is in a sense the
dual of "still":

za'o                    still
za'oku naku             still not (not yet)
naku za'oku             not still (no longer)
naku za'oku naku        not still not (no longer not, not not yet, already)

In Esperanto (or in Spanish) this is a litttle bit clearer:

Esperanto       Spanish         English

ankoraux        todavi'a        still
ankoraux ne     todavi'a no     not yet
jam             ya              already
jam ne          ya no           no longer


I know that {za'o} and "still" are not strictly the same, but they are
close. To have to say {naku za'oku naku} for already is too long,
as well as somewhat confusing because of the double negative.

> (ignoring a host of derived meanings).  I think we
> should be able to express such things by means of attitudinals.

i e'osai ko cupra loi mupli

i la dn cusku di'e

> mi stidi lu pumo'u li'u lo xelfanva bezoigy. already gy. .i za'a zo mo'u mutce
> leka to'e pilno kei semau zo ba'o
>
> I would suggest "pumo'u" for "already".  I observe that "mo'u" is much
> under-used more than "ba'o".

That works in some cases, e.g. {mi pumo'u cliva} = "I finished leaving
in the past" = "I already left". But I want something for the
continuous case, not the perfective (or whatever they are called).
For example: {mi xa'o klama} = "I'm already on my way".

Jorge