From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Aug 18 04:35:43 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 18 Aug 1993 08:34:40 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 18 Aug 1993 08:34:35 -0400 Message-Id: <199308181234.AA02105@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7864; Wed, 18 Aug 93 08:33:21 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 2969; Wed, 18 Aug 93 08:35:47 EDT Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 08:35:43 -0400 Reply-To: vilva@viikki21.helsinki.fi Sender: Lojban list From: VILVA@VIIKKI21.HELSINKI.FI Subject: Re: Still a few thoughts about ZAhOs X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: O X-Status: This posting contains responses to several postings > Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 12:29:32 EDT > From: Jorge LLambias > Subject: Re: Still a few thoughts about ZAhOs > Veijon, this discussion is proving to be very helpful, at least to me. > I think we are converging, slowly but surely, to the same understanding. me too. > You haven't addressed the issue of the mix up between ba'o and pu'o, > what are your thoughts on that matter? (I make some comments on it > answering one of your points below.) I'll handle this later on. > > This means that "ZAhO broda" defines a second-order relation. > With respect to "broda", yes. The same can be said of "PU broda" or > the other tenses. Here I don't quite agree. Due to the aoristic nature of the PU tenses they have no special effect on the underlying relation. da PU broda de di is roughly da broda de di PU le *cabna where *cabna refers to the time of utterance. The utterance merely states that the base bridi was true at least at the indicated part of the time axis relative to the time of utterance but may well be true also at any other time. > > There is NO transformation which given the ZAhO > > and the broda would give the corresponding relation ZAhO_broda. The > > meaning must be inferred from extratextual knowledge pertaining to the > > nature of the broda. > Here I'm not quite sure of what you are saying. The meaning of the > relation has its bones in the meaning of "ZAhO broda", and the context > provides, of course, the flesh, but the meaning of the "ZAhO broda" > should be clear. If by NO transformation, you mean that you cannot > express the sentence in a different way having _exactly_ the same > meaning, then I agree. But it is not necessary to do that in order to > understand the basic meaning of the relationship. What I meant was that given 2 different relations broda and brode there is no general function f such that f(ZAhO,broda) = ZAhO_broda and simultaneously f(ZAhO,brode) = ZAhO_brode i.e. that there is no general rule which would define how to derive (preferably programatically) ZAhO_broda from any given ZAhO and broda. > > At Lojban level this doesn't present any great difficulties once you > > learn to regard events as sequences of phases/states and ZAhO bridis > > as mental snapshots of these phases -- there is actually no need to > > analyze a phase into the basic ingredients. > This works for non-ZAhO bridis as well, doesn't it? Yes, of course. What I tried to say was that it isn't necessary to actually KNOW the ZAhO_broda. > I agree that the ZAhO are extremely important, that's why it is a pity > that ba'o and pu'o got mixed up. > But if on top of time being a nuisance, the similarities > ba-ba'o and pu-pu'o lead you to make the wrong connections, it becomes > much harder to grasp their true meaning. Every time I read "ba'o", I have > to tell myself: remember that the future has nothing to do here". The > intrusion of the past in "ba'o" would not hurt at all, and it may even > help, since what happened in the past is relevant to the state described > by the ba'o bridi. see later. > The simple replacement of "ba'o" by "...is in the aftermath of..." is > misleading, since it is not necessarily true that "x1 is in the aftermath > of brodaing" Well, it seems to me we haven't quite yet converged :-) For me stating mi ca ba'o zvati la paris. certainly implies something about me and Paris at the present. 'Me and Paris are in the aftermath of my having been to Paris.', neither of us is quite the same :-) As to the general case, statements (A) mi ba citka pu'o le nu do ba klama mi I'll eat before you come to me. and (B) mi ba ba'o citka pu'o le nu do ba klama mi I'll be in the state of having eaten before you come to me I'll be in the aftermath of having eaten before you come to me (*I'll have eaten before you come to me) tell each something different. In (A) the present definition says that the event "le nu mi ba citka" will be finished before you come (see later). If the aftermath wouldn't carry any weight, (B) would mean exactly the same. However, (B) is DEFINITELY a statement about "mi" or rather the state of "mi" in the aftermath. "la paulus. ba'o klama la damaskus." means that Paul is in the aftermath of having gone to Damascus. This doesn't merely state that "la paulus. pu klama la damaskus." is true. It says that Paul will ever since have the quality of having gone to Damascus. > > At a moment like > > that you most certainly don't think "ko'a has loved me" but "ko'a and > > I are past ko'a loving me". > > "past" is the key word here. ;) :( (-: Here the English is slightly mixed up as the meaning of the preposition "past" refering to time is 'beyond in time; after', e.g. past noon, half past six. Similarly for locations: He went past the gate. :-) > Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 12:18:58 -0400 > From: John Cowan > Subject: Re: Still a few thoughts about ZAhOs > > This gives us (approximately, ignoring perhaps some finer points > > relating to the ZAhO in question) > > > > da *ZAhO_broda de di ZAhO le nu da broda de di > > > > e.g. > > > > da ba'o klama de di > > => da *ba'o_klama de di ba'o le nu da klama de di > > > > where "*ba'o_klama" very clearly cannot equal "klama" as the relation > > between da, de and di IS NOT "da klama de di" anymore in the AFTERMATH > > of the coming -- da is already at de, not coming to de anymore. > However, I cannot agree with the above conclusions, because of the > lack of tense on "le nu da klama de di". > > You treat "da klama de di" as if it meant "da caca'oca'a klama de di", but > IT DOES NOT. It is open as to tense proper, aspect, and actuality. > So "ba'o_klama" is not a different relationship from "klama" proper, but > simply a subtype of it: it is klama seen from the aftermath perspective. > > We are prone to believe that "caca'oca'a", that which is actually continuing > now, is the most important part of the event, and can always be assumed as > the default, but it cannot. As I noted I WAS ignoring some fine points. I was using "le nu da klama de di" in the usual NL sense to refer to "le nu da ca'oca'a klama de di" i.e. the actual realized action part of the event in question. The main purpose was to derive an internal time reference using a ZAhO-tagged sumti. (BTW I have doubts about inserting a PU tense into the event descriptor as PUs are relative to the time of utterance which here isn't relevant as we have a definite event which we are refering to.) I have nothing against calling "ba'o_klama" a subtype of "klama" -- actually it makes sense because, what ever the relation is, it must contain traces of "klama". > "klama" is a most expansive relation, and > just as well associates the coming of Paul to Damascus, an event which > long ago entered its "ba'o" stage, as my going home tonight, which is > hardly even in its "pu'o" stage yet. Combining this, Bob's comment on this and what I was trying to do leads to a mess. Things do get kind of hairy and it's quite easy to end up with circular references like 'the aftermath of this event is in the aftermath of this event'. I'll try to reformulate. My starting point was that, at least externally, "la paulus. ca ba'o klama la damaskus" is a statement about Paul and Damascus and NOT a statement about the event of Paul's going to Damascus. This I felt was a very important distinction if we are to maintain that Lojban is a logical language. The explicit PU tense doesn't really matter as it merely shifts the whole mess relative to the narrator. Then I tried to clarify things by replacing the original relation with a new one which would hold only on a clearly demarcated part of the time axis. Firstly I wanted to show that the relation had to be different at different phases of the event. Secondly I wanted to show that using the cmavo "pu'o" for the ZAhO tense refering to the aftermath in no way contradicted the use of "pu'o" as a sumti tcita. Let's pass the first by noting that these relations are just subtypes of the klama relation appropriate to the phases of the event. Now the question about the assignment of the names of the cmavo remains to be solved. As I have stated and implied several times before I see NO contradiction what so ever between "pu'o" and "pu", either as tenses or as sumti tcita. Let's start from the basics. (1) a PU tense defines the position of the action of the base bridi (the ca'o phase) relative to the time of utterance (ignoring the aoristic nature of the PUs) (2) a ZAhO tense defines the position of the indicated phase of the process relative to the process proper (action, ca'o). Both of these are a matter of definition. In (2) we could choose to regard the action from the standpoint of the sumti in which case the action would be first in the future and then in the past. However, ZAhO tenses handle the event contour or the phases of a process. We are already used to talk about preprocessing and postprocessing, pre-war, post-war. ZAhOs are about being not doing. We might say He is in pre-action state ko'a ca pu'o zukte He is in action ko'a ca ca'o zukte He is in post-action state ko'a ca ba'o zukte as contrasted to He is going to act ko'a ba zukte He is acting ko'a ca zukte He has acted ko'a pu zukte As I have stated before, being in post-action state in no way implies existence, the state may as well be the state of non- existence -- a state is a state. Is the fact that e.g. "ba'o" can be just moved to link a nucleus event descriptor to the basic bridi in a way that CORRECTLY reflects the temporal position of the part relative to the nucleus of the whole a sufficient justification for the present assignment? We presently have the following parallel transformations (again ignoring a lot of details but don't let's get into that anymore, I know (roughly) what I'm eliding.) ko'a ba klama => ko'a klama ba le *cabna ko'a ca ba'o klama => ko'a ca *klama/b ba'o le nu ko'a co'aca'a klama (Having the explicit "ca" already greatly diminishes the pervasiveness of associating "ba'o" with a future tense.) > Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:21:23 EDT > From: Jorge LLambias > Subject: Re: Still a few thoughts about ZAhOs > la djan. cusku di'e > > la veion. cusku di'e > > > > > A bridi like > > > > > > da ZAhO broda de di [...] > > I believe that most of your thoughts on ZAhOs are entirely sound. > > However, I cannot agree with the above conclusions, because of the > > lack of tense on "le nu da klama de di". > This gets interesting! Then the ba'o as sumti tcita does _not_ define > a contour for the internal event of the sumti? This is what I would like, > but not what I've been told up to now, assuming that I understood what > I've been told. > > To be consistent with the other tenses, the contour should apply to the > main bridi, but it doesn't. In fact, it seems that as sumti tcita, the > ZAhOs acquire the ability to give a contour to both the main bridi and > the bridi inside the sumti. > > So, although I don't like the present interpretation, it seems to indicate > that Veijo is right. (Accepting as he does that he is ignoring some finer > points.) The Imaginary Journeys paper states about ZAhO used as sumti tcita that "The event described in the sumti is viewed as a process, and the action of the main bridi constitutes the part of the process which the ZAhO specifies." If I understand this and the given examples correctly it implies that the starting and ending points of the process defined by the outer bridi are CONTAINED within the ZAhO part of the sumti process. A PU tcita on the other hand requires only, if I understand things correctly, that there is an OVERLAP of the ca'o of the outer process and the part of the time axis indicated by the PU tcita. My PRESENT position regarding the event contours is (1) as far as the outer bridi is concerned, in the absence of an explicit ZAhO tense the ZAhO tcita sets OUTER limits to the action, i.e. the ca'o phase. This defines the event contour in a rather vague way (depending on the actual ZAhO used) but more precisely than the use of a PU tcita would. More precision can be obtained in some cases by using a ZAhO tense in the outer bridi. (2) the ZAhO tcita has usually a subsidiary role so that we are only interested in the event contour as a kind of scale which makes it possible to temporally locate the main bridi (A). There are, however, times when we may want to add emphasis to the contour (B). (A) mi klama ba'o le nu do pu klama (B) mi klama ca'o le nu do pu ba'o klama I think that in (A) the event of the attached sumti is seen as a whole (regardless of the ZAhO used) which is used solely to define a reference interval/point, while in (B) the internal contour is important: (A) I came after you (B) I came while you already were there There are situation where more complex contouring is necessary: mi (ba) klama do pu'o le nu do ba ba'o citka ---------------- About the range of pu'o and ba'o I have stated before that I don't think "pu'o" means "all the time until the event" and "ba'o" "all the time after the event". On the other hand I have indicated that these phases may have indefinite ranges practically covering all eternity. This seems to be a contradiction. This is partly explained by the fact that my thoughts have been developing, partly by the fact that I consider both the leader and the trailer phases to have a kind of density function. I think "pu'o" and "ba'o" are used for two separate kinds of reference: (1) to refer to an indefinite interval somehow connected with the event (2) to refer to the immediate inchoative/perfective phases of an event, e.g. "I'm about to ...", "I am just cleaning up after the act of ..." These are both necessary and there are cases when separating them isn't desirable. I think that excluding one type of use would create the necessity of adding two new contours to the existing set. This is, however, the kind of vagueness we are used to deal with in human communication. At strictly definitional level I tend to agree with Bob though I have used and, most likely, will use these cmavo in the sense of (2). co'o mi'e veion ------------------------------------------------------------------ Veijo Vilva vilva@viikki21.helsinki.fi