From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:50:22 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 2 Aug 1993 20:05:04 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4121; Mon, 02 Aug 93 20:03:53 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8637; Mon, 02 Aug 93 20:04:38 EDT Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 20:02:04 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: Re: On the tense system of ZAhO X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu, bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: Jorge LLambias's message of Mon, 2 Aug 1993 17:03:30 EDT <9308022108.AA22053@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Aug 2 20:05:06 1993 X-From-Space-Address: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Message-ID: Jorge LLambias says: Example from the tense paper: ___mi pu'o damba___ I [inchoative] fight. I'm on the verge of fighting. i.e. I'm at a point in time before my fighting begins. Notice that {mi ba damba} is also true: at some point in the future I'll be fighting; while {mi pu damba} has nothing to do with it. (If the definitions of pu'o and ba'o were reversed, as I think would be natural, this would be: mi ba'o damba. = I'm on the verge of fighting which shows clearly that the fighting is in the future) You may be misled by the example, which in English suggests that the point of departure for the ``Imaginary Journey through time'' is before the fighting. This is not the way to parse Lojban. Let's analyze this according to the technique described in the Imaginary Journey paper. If this were a spatial tense, we would say, `Start from the speaker's physical location, and then follow directions.' In this case, however, we have to start from the speaker's *event* location in time and then follow directions. The event location in this example is the process of being in fight that occurs. I.e., the speaker starts from the process of the predication. Follow directions: go to the `inchoative' time of the fight; this means go to the time before the process of the fight began. This is *before* the fight. Hence use of "pu'o" makes sense as a key word that is related to, but different from "pu".. Another example, rather less violent: le tricu pu'o crino The tree that I have in mind is in the inchoative state of greening. This sentence is making at least two claims: * a claim that greening for this tree is a process with a time before its beginning, a beginning, an occurence (which may be spread over time), an end, and a time after the end. * a claim that this tree is in the state before it greens. This is very different from saying le rokci punai je canai je ba crinu The rock I have in mind was not, is not, and will be green. This later sentence is *not* claiming that greening of a rock is a process. The sentence is claiming only that the rock is not now, was not, but will be green. (Perhaps because I am going to paint it.) (Most of us agree as a matter of physics that greening, even if by painting, is a process, but this particular sentence is not claiming that.) Note, by the way, that le rokci ba crinu does *not* translate as "The rock I have in mind will be green." It translates as: The rock I have in mind may already be green and it will be green. There are two ways to translate the common English use of "will be": * One is to specify "was not, is not and will be" using "punai je canai je ba". The English "will be" implies "was not, is not" but the lojban "ba" does not. This is the closest translation to the English. * The other is to make a different kind of claim about the universe, not a type that English speakers usually make, le rokci ba co'a crinu The rock I have in mind will begin the process of being green (it may or may not end it). This suggests that the green of the rock is a process, an occurrence with an internal structure including a beginning, a middle, and an end; and that you have to take an imaginary journey into the future to get to the beginning of the event. If I will paint the rock, both claims are true: it was not, is not, but will be green; and the painting is a process/event that will start. But these are different ways of looking at the greening. The former is common in English, the latter in some other languages. (If the definitions of pu'o and ba'o were reversed, as I think would be natural, this would be: mi ba'o damba. = I'm on the verge of fighting which shows clearly that the fighting is in the future) No, not at all. "pu'o" is *not* a future tense. It is not an English-style past-present-future tense at all. It is a different way of dealing with experience, as different as dealing with a spatial tense. "pu'o" is about a characteristic of the state of the predication, inchoative, in this case. (By the way, I think this is a very good key word for this; after you think about it for awhile, it becomes self explanatory.) It happens that inchoative states occur before things begin, so you get a time sequence, but time sequence as English speakers expect is is *not* an implication of this word. pu'o, ca'o, and ba'o are different from pu, ca, and ba. But like them, they make a fundamental claim about the nature of the physical and mental universe. pu'o, ca'o, and ba'o claim that events have contours and structure involving a beginning, middle, and end; pu, ca, and ba claim that events have a time sequence. Robert J. Chassell bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu Rattlesnake Mountain Road (413) 298-4725 Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA