xa'o was first proposed by Colin Fine
- There seems to be some confusion as to whether xa'o means happening before the natural beginning or stopping before the natural end.
- I vote for the former, happening before the natural beginning, being the mirror image of za'o and also referring to a time span which the event does occur, which gives the latter to xa'o na.
- In addition, I propose that bi'a be used for the standard word. xa'o sounds too close to za'o.
- Well, that's why it was chosen such! I recall the original definition was that of stopping too soon. Beginning too soon or too late can be expressed as xa'o na or za'o na, respectively.
I started going too late
mi za'o na klama
For too long I didn't go [literally]
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. Very elegant!
- Either way you chose, the other meaning is xa'o na. I like happening before the natural beginning, because, like za'o it refers to a span when the event happens (and doesn't contain a negative), whereas xa'o na refers to a span when the event doesn't happen (and does contain a negative).
- Then again, we could also create a new (experimental!) cmavo that indicates the "natural" time, as opposed to the actual time. With this, mi za'o klama could become something like
mi ca'o [new cmavo] mo'u klama
I continue to go, but the natural stopping time of that going is now
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- This permits wackier combinations, where you can easily express I went left, but it was natural that I'd gone up.
Proposed definition
xa'o [
ZAhO]
particle:
It indicates that a situation is in advance of its natural or expected starting point, already taking place. When tagging a sumti, the sumti indicates a concurrent event that was expected to be prior. broda xa'o lo nu brode = xa'o broda ca lo nu brode. Keywords: "already", "already when ..."
ko'a xa'o dasni lo cpanystizu e lo trosko i ku'i mi'a denpa lo bavlamnanca fo lo nu cpana ko'a
He already wears a saddle and bridle, but we will wait until next year to get on him.
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mi ca lo nu verba cu mutce clira ckali'a ca ro cerni i la patfu ca'o gunka xa'o lo nu mi ckali'a
As a child, I got up very early each morning and Daddy was already working when I got up.
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