Subject: Re: [lojban] Opposite of za'o

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 18:57:08 PDT

la ivAn cusku di'e

>I'm not quite sure I know what you mean by `mirror'. There is
>a reason for the current asymmetry of even contours, and it is
>the fact that causality works forward in time.

I don't dispute that of course. What word should I use, "dual"?
It is certainly a duality relationship, much like the
relationship between "necessary" and "possible", or the
relationship between "all" and "some", or between "and"
and "or". In all of these we have X = 'not Y not' for
some suitable use of 'not'. I understand X and Y to be duals,
but I seem to recall someone objecting to this term in the
past as well.

>This is why a
>process can have only one kind of beginning but two kinds of end,
>or a total of three points that can define the contour (leaving
>aside temporary pauses and resumptions):
>
>{co'a}: event brings forth process
>{mo'u}: process brings forth event
>{co'u}: event discontinues process
>
>There doesn't seem to be a vacancy for a fourth point. (Surely
>it is not `process discontinues event', because events can't be
>discontinued, they just happen. By `event' here I mean a point
>event, also known as an achievement.)

If we can make a distinction between "event discontinues process"
and a "process brings forth event", I don't see why we can't
distinguish "event brings forth process" from "process leaves
event behind", distinguishing a mere circumstantial start from
an actual birth or origination.

> > >`Is dinner ready? -- No, it's still cooking.'
>
>What I'm trying to say is that the question (formulated as it is)
>brings up a possible world in which completion has been attained,
>thus either {ba'o broda} or {za'o broda} holds (depending on
>whether the associated activity has been discontinued after having
>brought about its culmination), and the answer states that in fact
>it is {ca'o broda} that holds and {ba'o/za'o broda} do not.

Ok, I see. Then "still" in this case indicates that the
activity is occurring beyond the end point postulated
by the question. An externally imposed culmination more
than one intrinsic to the process.

> > >I have washed the car, but I have not yet walked the dog.
> > >i mi ba'o lumci le karce i ku'i mi pu'o dzugau le gerku
>
>It's the information structure (the location of the focus
>of the utterance). What the Lojban is failing to say is
>`... but as for {dzugau le gerku} [topic], I'm {pu'o} [focus]
>that part'. In contrast to, that is, the {ba'o} in {ba'o
>lumci le karce}; also in contrast to some other (hypothetical)
>situation in which {ba'o dzugau le gerku}.

Maybe the way to get that would be:

i mi ba'o lumci le karce i mi pu'o ku'i dzugau le gerku

co'o mi'e xorxes

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