Re: GEN: almost-PROPOSAL: intervals

["Jorge J. Llambias" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

And:
>> There is no problem with that: use za, or va, when you don't want
>> to say that it is a small or large distance.
>What if I don't want to say it's a medium distance, either? What if
>I just want to say what the distance is, without making a judgement
>of its magnitude relative to other distances?

I don't think za and va make such judgement. The gloss "medium"
only makes sense when they are used contrastively with the -i and -u
forms. If you still think that there is such a judgement, then it will
be one that the language forces you to make, just as English requires
you to use tense, for example.

>Yes, but no way is provided for specifying the distance, except in this
>relative way. I think it's an oversight because English does offer a
>way, and it's used a lot, so I reckon that if the designers had noticed
>that english does this then they would have copied it, that being a
>common and sensible method in the design process.

I'm glad it wasn't copied straight from English, because not all languages
seem to deal with the problem in the same way. At least English, Spanish
and Esperanto each uses a slightly different method. I find the va/za
method very pleasing within the Lojban system.

>I wonder how "four score and ten years ago" was done: Lojbab translated
>it a few years back. [See? "a few years back". Ubiquitous.] Does
>anyone have the gettysburg address translation?

If I remember correctly, there is a discussion of that in the MEX paper,
although the emphasis was on the "four score and ten" bit, not on the "ago".

Jorge