From bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Wed Aug 4 08:04:52 1993 Received: from MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 08:04:49 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Aug 1993 08:04:16 -0400 Message-Id: <199308041204.AA05578@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0886; Wed, 04 Aug 93 08:03:08 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 2876; Wed, 04 Aug 93 08:04:37 EDT Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1993 08:01:04 EDT Reply-To: bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu Sender: Lojban list Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was bob@GRACKLE.STOCKBRIDGE.MA.US From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Subject: On the tense system of ZAhO (short) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu, bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: Colin Fine's message of Wed, 4 Aug 1993 10:21:35 +0100 <9308040923.AA02879@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Status: RO X-Status: Another way to understand ZAhO is to remember that they are *not* about time as we normally think of it at all. They are about states of a process. Imagine you are talking about a nuclear reactor. It can be in the states of being unbuilt {pu'o}, built and operating {ca'o}, or decommissioned {ba'o}. In addition, there is a startup date {co'a}, a `natural' (i.e., planned for) decommissioning date {mo'u}, and an actual decommissioning date {co'u}. If I say, "The reactor is decommissioned," you know what state it is in. If you want to translate into time-based terms, you can do so and say, ~The reactor is now in the time period after its operation, in the aftermath of its operational period." You can then make a `free translation' and say, "The reactor was operating." Most of the time, such a free translation would be accurate. However, it would not be accurate for the Shoreham Nuclear power plant because that plant was decommissioned after building, but before operating. The sentence "The reactor is decommissioned," makes a veridical claim about the current state, not about the other states. Translating {ba'o} as a kind of `past tense' causes you to make unsupported (but very often correct) veridical claims about a previous state. Since there is often a strong corrolation between the way of talking with PU and the way of talking with ZAhO, we often imagine that the two types of tense are close, but they are not. Robert J. Chassell bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu Rattlesnake Mountain Road (413) 298-4725 Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA