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Re: *junctions of time

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Sunday, March 19, 2006, 18:31
Taliesin wrote:
> Given "after", "before", "when", "while", "since", "until" and longer > terms such as "from now on", "from this point forward" etc., how can we > collapse them?
Aargh. Some of these were problems in Kash; I refused to invent separate words for them, preferring to derive most of them from "anju" 'time,moment,period; when'.
> > Before time T, an event happened > Until time T, an event was undergoing
There are some oddities here-- "We left before(*until) 8 o'clock // we left before(*until) the show ended" and-- "We stayed until (*before) midnight" but... "We can't/didn't/won't leave before/until ...." Near-synonymous in: "Before/until yesterday, I thought/knew/believed...(many verbs)...X" I can see your punctual/ durative senses here. Anyhow, Kash ended up distinguishing "before/in front of (position)" and "before (in time)"; and "until" seems to mean mostly "up to the time of...." Same with "after" (~behind =position) vs. (time)
> "While" can be used to mark that something happened at the same time or > during something else happened: while X was happening, Y was also > happening.
Yes; same Kash term for while/during ("at the time of..."); "since" is "from the time of...")
> In addition there are lotsa of words for time that does not attempt too > join clauses in any way, like "late", "last", "previous", "now", "then"...
But they do relate things in time. Kash "now" and "then" are both derived < anju: "this time", "that time". There seem to be two words for "late", one slightly pejorative (and borrowed < Gwr), that means "not on time as expected", the other (native, app. < fanan 'slow') that's more "delayed"-- some may not see any distinction :-( but consider-- Boss to employee: You're late! (caki, < Gwr) Employee to boss: I'll be late (fandat) (looks like present/future distinction) "Late=recently deceased" is something else entirely (prakorem as vb., NOUN re pakorem as adj.-- honorific pfx pra- + dead)
> ...etc., these could also be interesting to collapse, especially in that > words like "last" has at least two meanings: "previous" and "final". >
ummm, so far, only last=final. In some cases-- time words-- the "previous" sense could be "cosa" 'gone, ago', but still, "last month" and "a month ago" aren't quite the same. And how about "former vs. latter"-- so far a blank in Kash; Gwr will use "that-far vs. this", a la español. (And what about former(ly)= previous(ly)......? Most interesting. This post, and your previous one on conjunctions, has provided some very worthwhile food for thought...:-)

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Amanda Babcock Furrow <ababcock@...>