Re: THEORY ago (was: Most common irregular verbs?)

On 1/17/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
> BTW How do Conlangs handle 'ago'?
gjâ-zym-byn typically uses negative ordinal numbers with
time-period nouns, e.g.:

cxeq'txax se-dax-pa
day       minus-three-ORD
"the minus-three'th day" == "three days ago"

This corresponds to the positive ordinals for "hence",

hyr  dxy-pa
hour five-ORD
"the fifth hour" == "five hours hence"

I could use "bax-pa" (zeroth) to refer to the current
period, e.g.

cxeq'txax bax-pa = today

but I more commonly use "koq" (this) for that,
cxeq'txax koq = today

An alternate way is to use the postposition "dxi"
which is very like "ago" (or like "antaux" and "vor"
but postpositive).  There are more specific
forms "dxin" (exactly N period(s) ago), "dxij"
(before N periods; almost N periods ago), "dxir"
(considerably before N periods).  E.g.,

lyn-bly    dx-i-n
Luna-orbit before-at-contact
exactly one lunar month ago

cxeq'txax dx-i-j
day       before-at-near
a little more than 24 hours ago

fix'sunq-bly dx-i-r
Earth-orbit  before-at-distant
well over a year ago


Similarly, "dxinx" refers to the early part of
some period, e.g.,

cxeq'txax koq  dx-i-nx
day       this before-at-inside
early this morning


Corresponding to English "long ago"
I would have to use an explicit word
for "time", i.e. as in "a long time ago":

viqj vxu-box  dx-i
time long-ADJ before-at


--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/gzb/gzb.htm
...Mind the gmail Reply-to: field