On the question about French and "il y a + time", another way I've
seen it is "time + en avant", literally "time in before".

As for my isolating language that I made up in an hour and that
doesn't have a name yet :), I would probably say "time + before" or
something like that.

In my very-much-inflecting-and-agglutinating conlang, I have a
temporal case.  I would probably just use something like
before-month-3-TEMP for "three months ago."

On 1/17/06, R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > On 1/17/06, R A Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >>But, with the best will in the world, I still cannot fathom how 'ago',
> >>in its modern use, can be analyzed as an adjective. So far no one has
> >>explained this analysis.
> >
> >
> > I think the idea is that "three years ago", the "ago" is telling you
> > what kind of "years" are under discussion,
>
> Sort of like "ago years", as opposed to any other sort? The 'full form'
> "a-gone" could be used with 'to be', e.g. "Fours years are a-gone" =
> 'Four years have passed'. But we do not say *"Four years are ago". It's
> rather strained IMHO to call 'ago' an adjective.
>
> > and the adverbial
> > relationship is merely implied.  I could be wrong.  It's not a very
> > good analysis, in any event. :)
>
> Well, I think most of us are agreed on that one, so it's probably best
> not to flog this aspect of the thread further.
>
> >>Meanwhile, it's interesting seeing how this is done Conlangs. How, just
> >>out interest, does Esperanto do it?
> >
> >
> > With antaŭ (=antaux if you can't see the last symbol; it's a U with a
> > breve), literally "before".  So "Three days go" is "antaŭ tri tagoj".
>
> Right - that's like the German method, I think.
>
> I have since discovered that Novial simply has 'X-time before now'. The
> example given in 'Novial Lexike" is: "_multi yares ante nun_  = many
> years ago."
>
> So 'long ago' would be: longitem ante nun
>
> > A more interesting question to me is this: how does Lojban do it?
> I agree.
>
> 'long ago' is apparently expressed by _puzu_ from the two cmavo: pu
> (time in the past) + zu (long time distance). the example I have found are:
> {quote}
> 4.7 le nanmu puzu vu batci le gerku
>      The man [past] [long time] [long space] bites the dog.
>      Long ago and far away, the man bit the dog.
>
> Alternatively,
>
> 4.8)  le nanmu batci le gerku puzuvuku
>      The man bites the dog [past] [long time] [long space].
>      The man bit the dog long ago and far away.
> {/unquote}
>
> I've found an example of 'puzi' for "a short time ago" (Guess what the
> cmavo 'zi' means!):
> 4.2)  le nanmu puzi batci le gerku
>      The man [past] [short distance] bites the dog.
>      A short time ago, the man bit the dog.
>
> But, altho I've looked at several sites, I haven't discovered what
> happens with the Lojban equivalent of phrases like "three years ago".
> (BTW I get really put off by the use of all terms like cmavo, bridi,
> sumti, gismu, selma'o etc.  :=(
>
> --
> Ray
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