Re: `already'

[Ivan A Derzhanski <IAD@BGEARN.BITNET>]

On Thu, 21 Dec 1995 09:54:42 -0500 Jorge Llambias said:
>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.

That's a different kind of combination.  I would compare ZAhO to kinship
relations and `already' and the rest to modifiers such as `younger'; you
can be someone's younger brother, but you can't be someone's brother and
father at the same time, although you can be someone's father's brother.
Now, what a ZAhO does is select a stage in the contour of an event.  If
that stage is then treated as an event in its own right, with a contour
of its own, you can choose a stage of that by means of another ZAhO.
By contrast, `already' doesn't affect the event contour;  what it does
is bring up another state of affairs in which you're at an earlier stage
({pu'o} rather than {ca'o} or {co'i}, say).

>I don't see why {pu'o} would be incompatible, either:
>
>  [...] He was already about to leave at 8:30.

Ah.  Okay, if {pu'o} means `about to', then it's not incompatible.

>        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.

Wait a minute.  Your interpretation of {za'o} seems to be radically
different from mine.  I understand that {za'o} means `happening beyond
its culmination', where the culmination follows from the nature of the
process rather than your expectations.  `I'm still cooking the meat'
most likely means that it isn't done yet; `I'm overcooking the meat'
means that it is already done, and I'm burning it.

And of course nothing can happen before its natural start.  You don't
have to stop when you've finished, but you can't start without starting.

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

So is `finally', though in a different sense.  Both indicate that something
is the case, and that previously it has not been the case.  The difference
is whether the change is seen as early or late.

--Ivan