History: yet and already

Source of version: 1 (current)

I believe that nobody knows how to express ''yet'' and ''already'' in Lojban. Sad. * ((xa'o)) (in its "happening before expectation" sense) works for ''already''. ''za'o na'' works for ''not yet''. --((xorxes)) ** however xa'o is not an official part of the language. Already may be done with clira. Yet is a bit difficult without context, as someone commented below. -- mi'e .djorden. *** Concerning your concern that "xa'o" isn't official enough; did the writer of the initial sentence mean Red Book Lojban, or Lojban as it is used in the community? "Yet" has several meanings in English! It seems you're digging out the same deficiencies of Lojban I too discovered some years back :( _yet_ as xorxes pointed out, one can manage to deal with this issue: {za'o} "still", {za'o na} "not yet": {*xa'o} is a fix off the baseline. BTW, these little words are handled quite differently in the various languages, so one really has to get familiar with. Another important point is the lack of subjunctive related stuff ("possible worlds") in Lojban/Loglan - a deficiency, for me, really hard to understand regarding the high linguistic skills of the creators of this language. -- ''.aulun.'' * "da'i" isn't sufficient for you? * Subjunctive mood is a defect of natural languages. There is no reason to have to conjugate verbs different (which doesn't even apply to lojban anyway) simply because you're talking about possibilities. The meaning carried by "If I was to go" is no different than "If I were to go". Lojban doesn't need these kinds of useless exceptions, pe'i. -- mi'e .djorden. With regard and confined to examples like this, you're probably right, yet, generalized, it just ''were'' silly (excuse!). But I really don't have any intention to "gebetsmuehlenartig" retalk the whole stuff again and again with every newly enamoured Lojban aficionado ;-) Maybe others are inclined to. -- ''.aulun.'' * I'm afraid I don't quite follow that. Your usage of "were" above (zo'o?) sounds weird because "were" is also plural conjugation of the to be verb in eng, so you can't do "it were".... And it ''would'' (heh) help your case if you gave an example of where you think subjunctive is somehow neccesary -- I don't understand the desire not to support your position. -- mi'e ((Jordan DeLong|.djorden.)) ''... if it'' were ''so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answered it, here under leave of Brutus and the rest...'' ('t is true that English is becoming pretty flat as time goes by ;(( Please, search for "possible worlds" in the list! ''-- .aulun.'' * Umm this is a usage of were after "if" (i.e. subjunctive)... cunso cunso... or perhaps you intended that as an example of where subjunctive is neccesary: if so I must say, it most certainly is not :P. Lojban has sufficent tools to render the above sentence, without adding some kind of exceptional natlang-style verb conjugation... -- mi'e .djorden. ** For heaven's sake, Jordan, don't confuse mood (a morphological phenomenon, like a conjugation) with modality (an epistemic state, like counterfactuality.) English no longer has a subjunctive mood, but it still has 'subjunctive' modality. If it makes you so uncomfortable, then do what linguists do, and every time you see 'subjunctive', read 'counterfactual' or 'irrealis'. And don't even think of telling me Lojban doesn't need a way of distinguishing irrealis from realis (which is exactly why both da'i and mu'ei were invented.) -- nitcion ---- I am ''still'' not understanding. :-( mu'a ko fanva di'u la lojban fu ma