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In English, every verb is tagged for the grammatical category called tense: past, present, or future. The sentence
17.1) John went to the storenecessarily happens at some time in the past, whereas
17.2) John is going to the storeis necessarily happening right now.
The Lojban sentence
17.3) la djan. [cu] klama le
zarci
-------- ========== --------
John goes/went/will go to-the store
serves as a translation of either
Example 17.1
or
Example 17.2
, and of many other possible English sentences as well. it is not
marked for tense, and can refer to an event in the past, the
present or the future. This rule does not mean that Lojban has no
way of representing the time of an event. A close translation of
Example 17.1
would be:
17.4) la djan. pu klama le zarci
-------- ======== --------
John [past] goes to-the store
where the tag ``pu'' forces the sentence to refer to a time in
the past. Similarly,
17.5) la djan. ca klama le
zarci
-------- ======== --------
John [present] goes to-the store
necessarily refers to the present, because of the tag ``ca''.
Tags used in this way always appear at the very beginning of the
selbri, just after the ``cu'', and they may make a ``cu''
unnecessary, since tags cannot be absorbed into tanru. Note that
Example 17.3
has and requires a ``cu'' to prevent ``bajra'' and ``klama'' from
forming a tanru, but
Example 17.4
and
Example 17.5
lack the unnecessary ``cu''. Such tags serve as an equivalent to
English tenses and adverbs. In Lojban, tense information is
completely optional. If unspecified, the appropriate tense is
picked up from context.
Lojban also extends the notion of ``tense'' to refer not only to time but to space. The following example uses the tag ``vu'' to specify that the event it describes happens far away from the speaker:
17.6) do [cu] vu vecnu zo'e
-- ========
You yonder sell something-unspecified.
In addition, tense tags (either for time or space) can be prefixed to the selbri of a description, producing a tensed sumti:
17.7) le pu bajra [ku] cu
tavla
---------------- =====
The earlier/former/past runner talked/talks.
(Since Lojban tense is optional, we don't know when he or she
talks.)
Tensed sumti with space tags correspond roughly to the English use of ``this'' or ``that'' as adjectives, as in the following example, which uses the tag ``vi'' meaning ``nearby'':
17.8) le vi bajra [ku] cu tavla
---------------- =====
The nearby runner talks.
This runner talks.
Do not confuse the use of ``vi'' in Example 17.8 with the cmavo ``ti'', which also means ``this'', but in the sense of ``this thing''.
Furthermore, a tense tag can appear both on the selbri and within a description, as in the following example (where ``ba'' is the tag for future time):
17.9) le vi tavla [ku] cu ba klama
---------------- ========
The here talker [future] goes.
The talker who is here will go
This talker will go.
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Previous
Indicators |
A Quick Tour of Lojban Grammar, With Diagrams
The Lojban Reference Grammar |
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Lojban grammatical terms |