"I used to..."

[Sarandib22]

I have been working on compiling a basic flashcard set for Lojban conjugations here, based off of "The Crash Course":

https://www.memrise.com/course/1457818/lojban-conjugation/

"The Crash Course" gives the following conjugation:

I used to see = {mi bu'u pu zu viska}

From what I've read so far, "bu'u" means "in, through, around," as in {mi cadzu bu'u le tcadu} = I walk through the city. "pu zu" would be "a long time ago." So "bu'u pu zu" would be "in/through/around the location of a distant time."

First question: is "bu'u" even correct, as it seems to refer in all other cases to a physical location, and not to a temporal one?

If "bu'u pu zu" is correct, this seems closer to the Spanish Imperfect tense than anything we have in English. "I used to..." in English can mean something like "I used to live in that city," where living there is a formerly sustained state now distant in time, as would be expressed by the imperfect. But it could also mean "I used to walk through that park," which is not a sustained state, but a habitual occurrence which might have only ceased last week. In that case, wouldn't "I used to..." instead be "mi pu ta'e..."?

The difference would be:

I used to see = {mi bu'u pu zu viska} <-- with the implication I no longer see, and am now blind
I used to see = {mi pu ta'e viska}      <-- with the implication I habitually saw something (a person, painting, a view out the window} which I am now prevented from being able to see by time or circumstance

Would that be correct? Should those two expressions be different conjugations in Lojban?

Thanks for your help!

[Michael Turniansky]

    That is not standard usage of bu'u.  If someone put that in, they are either mistaken, or using an unofficial grammar.  The standard translation of mi bu'u pu zu viska would mean "I used to see around here"  (e.g. mi bu'u puzu viska lo cipni = I used to see birds around here.) 

  That being said, there have been a lot of people experimenting with variant grammars, and I am a dinosaur is sticking with only what is official, so that may represent the "irc dialect".  But from an official standpoint, bu'u is only spatial.  

           --gejyspa

 

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[uakci]

2017-04-10 12:20 GMT+02:00 Sarandib22 <danicam...@hotmail.com>:

I have been working on compiling a basic flashcard set for Lojban conjugations here, based off of "The Crash Course":

https://www.memrise.com/course/1457818/lojban-conjugation/

"The Crash Course" gives the following conjugation:

I used to see = {mi bu'u pu zu viska}

From what I've read so far, "bu'u" means "in, through, around," as in {mi cadzu bu'u le tcadu} = I walk through the city. "pu zu" would be "a long time ago." So "bu'u pu zu" would be "in/through/around the location of a distant time."

There's one thing here should be clarified: prepositions take sumti, never verbs or other prepositions. {bu'u} and {pu zu} here don't really interact with each other. {bu'u} just means "here, there, at some specifc place", and {pu zu} just means "a long time ago" — they independently modify the sentence.

 

First question: is "bu'u" even correct, as it seems to refer in all other cases to a physical location, and not to a temporal one?

If "bu'u pu zu" is correct, this seems closer to the Spanish Imperfect tense than anything we have in English. "I used to..." in English can mean something like "I used to live in that city," where living there is a formerly sustained state now distant in time, as would be expressed by the imperfect. But it could also mean "I used to walk through that park," which is not a sustained state, but a habitual occurrence which might have only ceased last week. In that case, wouldn't "I used to..." instead be "mi pu ta'e..."?

The difference would be:

I used to see = {mi bu'u pu zu viska} <-- with the implication I no longer see, and am now blind
I used to see = {mi pu ta'e viska}      <-- with the implication I habitually saw something (a person, painting, a view out the window} which I am now prevented from being able to see by time or circumstance

Would that be correct? Should those two expressions be different conjugations in Lojban?

Thanks for your help!