%META:TOPICINFO{author="NickNicholas" date="1048411920" format="1.0" version="1.1"}%
%META:TOPICPARENT{name="NauPollSumtiTcitaHere-nowDescription"}%
1. The reason why _nau_ exists as a cmavo distinct from _cabu'e_ is that the deictic centre for bridi tense (that is, the anchor relative to which tense is determined) is not always the speaker; it may be shifted, using sticky tense or narrative convention. _nau_ in that case resets the deictic centre to the speaker. However, such a shift is inapplicable to sumti tcita; for tenses expressed by sumti tcita, the deictic centre is _always_ the bridi event, with no possibility of shift. This would make _nau_ as a sumti tcita identical to _ca_.

Such a definition of _nau_ would not only be not particularly useful, but it would be counterintuitive, given that _nau_ has embedded in it the notion of resetting the deictic centre (which is not clearly compatible with "imaginary journeys", so that any sense of disrupting the paradigm would be minimal). So it seems more useful to have _nau_ give the speaker here-and-now, just as _nau_ as a bridi tense situates the event in the speaker here-and-now. This would allow distinctions to be made such as:

	* =mi tavla la tom. pu lo masti be li vo nau la relmast.= <br />I talked to Tom four months ago (it is now February)

-- Main.NickNicholas - 23 Mar 2003

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2. In http://www.lojban.org/wiki/index.php/CAhA%20as%20sumtcita
 , Adam Raizen suggests that _nau_ instead sets the deictic centre ("reference point") to something other than the speaker here-and-now, but that function is arguably already performed by _ki_.

-- Main.NickNicholas - 23 Mar 2003

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