Another application of non-logical tense connection is to talk about sub-events of events. Consider a six-shooter: a gun which can fire six bullets in succession before reloading. If I fire off the entire magazine twice, I can express the fact in Lojban thus:
21.1) mi reroi pi'u xaroi
cecla le seldanti
I [twice] [cross-product] [six times]
shoot the projectile-launcher.
On two occasions, I fire the gun six times.
It would be confusing, though grammatical, to run the “reroi”
and the “xaroi” directly together. However, the non-logical
connective “pi'u” expresses a Cartesian product (also known
as a cross product) of two sets. In this case, there is a set
of two firings each of which is represented by a set of six
shots, for twelve shots in all (hence the name “product”: the
product of 2 and 6 is 12). Its use specifies very precisely
what occurs.
In fact, you can specify strings of interval properties and event contours within a single tense without the use of a logical or non-logical connective cmavo. This allows tenses of the type:
21.2) la djordj. ca'o co'a ciska George [continuitive] [initiative] writes. George continues to start to write. 21.3) mi reroi ca'o xaroi darxi le damri I [twice] [continuitive] [six times] hit the drum. On two occasions, I continue to beat the drum six times.