Re: GEN: almost-PROPOSAL: intervals

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>> I believe that the omission of this feature from the current
>> language is just an oversight; I think it would be in there if whoever
>> made the system had remembered they were needed.
>
>That's exactly what I'm saying. It really ought to be there already. It is
>a gap, an oversight, and people kept glancing over it.

As to whether it is an omission from the tense design of the language,
one would have to ask pc about that.  It seems clear from zi/za/zu that
JCB never thought about someone wanting to make the distance specific.
BUT JCB is also wont to coin usages on the spot with no particular
logical system to them, so he might use za+interval to expresss a
distance one time, and something else a different time and he would never
notice (and  if anyone called him on it, it would be by private mail
and he needn't admit that he was wrong).

As to whether it is needed - I will trust Goran that it is.

Whether we can/cannot use existing constructs in the language to achieve
the intent satisfactorily - that is the question.  I have suggested a
couple of possibilities.  It occurs to me to suggest one more:
fi'o + distance + appropriate lujvo (for time after/time before and
any variety of space intervals.

This would fit the current standard, which is that anything that cannot
be easily expressed in the current tense and BAI grammar should be added
using fi'o (an old jimc invention BTW).  Our intent of course was that
anything that turned out to be Zipfeanly too long for fi'o would
eventually be shortened.

I like this way other than the existing proposals because a) I am not sure
Try that agin:
I like this way other than the existing proposals because under the
existing proposals, it is unclear that both a) all cases where specific
intervals are needed are covered AND (at the same time) b) the specifying
of the interval is clear as to direction or other parameters.

To make for example, the NOI proposal general enough, as in Veijo's last
version, you have a relative clause, and nothing is all that clear as to
where the "ke'a" is in the relative clause, OR what the ke'a stands for.
Thus "za noi nanca lipimu ..." you could not put any of the standard
KOhA in the x1 of nanca, and have it be clear.  You have to deduce or declare
a convention that a time interval there is a time interval distance.  There
is no way to make thius precisely clear.  And unfortunately, I can easily
envision that a construct like Veijo's latest version (was it mod_head+
relative clause?) is so potentially flexible that people will invariably find
all sorts of interesting things to put in that relative clause, with some
inevitable semantic collision.

Cowan is analyzing the problem, and will give his views when he is ready.
possibly after consulting with pc.  Until either or both of them speak up,
I am going to try to minimize this thread.  It is accepted that Goran sees
a problem and that we should discuss the problem in the refgrammar, and
present a solution.

lojbab