Re: A question about space tenses

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

lojbab:
> The etymology is from farna indeed, with the presumed meaning "in the
> direction of" which seems locative, rather than "facing" which is orientative,

According to the gismu list, farna means "x1 is the direction of x2
from origin x3". I really don't want to turn this into another
what-does-the-English-word-means, but my dictionary has for "direction"
(besides some other irrelevant stuff):

direction: the line or course on which something is moving or is aimed
           to move or along which something is pointing or facing.

I understood "farna" to mean that x2 is moving/aimed/pointing/facing
in the direction that goes from x3 to x1. Is my understanding wrong?
If so, how do I get this meaning in Lojban?

To obtain the location meaning with my understanding of farna I would
use "selfarzva": x1 is located towards x2 from x3.

> I don;lt think we ever considered an orientative tense.  We did something
> with BAI, I think to allow stating an orientation, but I cannot remember what
> it was.

The closest thing I can find is seka'a and teka'a for destination and
origin, but this is not really the same thing at all.

For example:

        bau le rabybau zu'afa'a ciska
        In Arabic one writes leftwards.

I don't think it would make sense to talk about movement here, nor to
use seka'a.

> The main argument for locative interpretation is indeed that of
> the refgrammar, since the whole "Imaginary Journeys" metaphor is locative i
> in paradigm.

Yes, I agree that is a valid argument, but then how do we express direction?
Are we limited to roundabout expressions like:

        le nu ciska bau le rabybau cu se farna le zunle
        Writing in Arabic is towards the left.

This is acceptable too of course, but it's nice to have the shorter
possibility.

About mo'i:
> In which case things are ambiguous.  But I would presume that showing
> motion in a sumti would be done using "pe" or "ne" rather than with a
> tense on the bridi.

Well, there are examples in the refgrammar that use mo'i in the bridi
to show motion of a sumti.

Jorge