From lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Mon Apr 15 18:43:57 1996 Received: from punt4.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA11355 ; Mon, 15 Apr 96 18:43:51 BST Received: from punt-4.mail.demon.net by mailstore for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk id 829347028:20887:3; Fri, 12 Apr 96 23:10:28 BST Received: from cunyvm.cuny.edu ([128.228.1.2]) by punt-4.mail.demon.net id aa20439; 12 Apr 96 23:09 +0100 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 4193; Fri, 12 Apr 96 18:09:02 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 0618; Fri, 12 Apr 96 18:08:36 EDT Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 23:08:45 +0100 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: *intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Multiple recipients of list LOJBAN Message-ID: <829346962.20439.0@cunyvm.cuny.edu> Status: R > Since the Arsitotelian event types happen to correlate closely with the > types of tenses/aspects that are found in the world's languages, Really? How? > >> (nor mu'acu'icai - intensely not-particularly exemplary???). > >{mua cui} means "omitting examples". According to maoste, at least. > >So {mua cui cai} = "very much omitting examples". {cui} is not the > >scale of exemplariness. > I don't see what the cai is adding. If you have omitted the examples > without the cai, I don't see what it means to intensely do so. Lots of examples omitted. Like English "etc etc etc", "and so on and so on and so on". > >> >For some but not all gismu the definition entails that some situation is > >> >involved and it has certain properties - e.g. {cinba} necessarily > >> >involves a kiss, and that is clearly not a state. > >> Why not? Have you no imagination? > >A bicycle is not a racehorse, however good your imagination and your > >ability to view it as a racehorse. A kiss is not a state. > Maybe not in English - or maybe you haven't experienced such a kiss %^) It is in the world that a kiss is not a state. > A state is defined as an event with an essentially abrupt beginning and > ending, a recognized duration (not a point event), and no particular > substructure within - either repeated (i.e. activity) or developing > (i.e. process). I have certainly experienced kisses like that %^) "Is defined" by who? Your definitions are - in my view - wrong, but even if we accept them as lojban-specific definitions, my general point goes through - that is, aktionsart is inherent to things. For example, knitting and jogging necessarily involve repetition, which for you is criterial for "activityhood". > >> I picture statuary of two lovers embracing, and have no problem viewing > >> their act as lo za'i cinba > >{ti za,i zei cinba} might be fair descriptions. > Not sure why you need the zei there. Because {ti za,i cinba} would be false (on certain definitions of {za,i}). Same for {ti za,i jogger}. > But I think you just conceded my argument. You accept (if I understand) > ti nu cinba (=> ti nu zei cinba => ti nuncinba) > and by your last > ti za'i cinba (=> ti za'i zei cinba) > as fair descriptions of the statuary. I don't accept {ti nu cinba} or {ti za,i cinba} as true descriptions (though certainly they are fair and informative descriptions - but that's beside the point). > >I don't see predicates as representing anything. No predicate, as far > >as I can see, has telic or durative properties, let alone by definition. > Then I don't know what you mean by a predicate - unless we are confusing > predicates and predications here. Extensionally, a predicate is a set of ordered n-tuples. [Correct me if I err.] Intensionally, it is a body of conditions that determine whether a relationship obtains. Nothing nonstandard there. I mean "predicate" in the logical sense. It is also common to call verbs "predicates"; I do not wish to commit that abomination. > >You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that situation types > >are somehow privileged, are somehow different from other objects. > >They're not. You can view cabbage as gas rather than solid. But > >cabbage is still solid. > If your cabbage is in a gaseous state, then it would no longer be > recognized by anyone as cabbage %^) It's not that it would covertly be cabbage, unnoticed by all observers. It would simply not be cabbage. The same goes for whatever it is that you describe as jogging and a state - whatever it is, it is not jogging and a state. > >A race running > >must be dynamic and inherently bounded. Therefore it is a process. If > >it is not dynamic and inherently bounded then it's not a race running, > >and of course it's not a process. > I don't accept your definition of a race running. > Is Zeno's paradox involving a race running inherently bounded? > (Achilles vs. a tortoise???) I think so. I don;t see why not. > I'm not sure what you mean by dynamic. I mean "with intrinsic tendency to cease; requiring energy input to maintain it". > >What you haven't grasped > >is that when you think of Ted as a state, or as an activity, you are not > >thinking of Ted as a race running. > Then you are taking a narrow view of what constitutes a "race running". > I would not limit the English concept "race running" to processes only. > And of course the Lojban concept is going to be dependent on how you > word it. Certainly if a race running is DEFINED as only "pu'u bajryjivna" > then it is not a "za'i bajryjivna". Most situations are defined as puu or za,i, just as most objects are defined for whether they have spatial extent, inherent boundaries, substructure, and so on. I think the easiest way to resolve this dispute is to agree that {puu/za,i broda} are, semantically, tanru, and that the truth of {za,i broda} does not entail the truth of {broda}. If you'll agree that, then I'll accept that all your za,i cinbas and so forth are legitimate - indeed, not only legitimate, but very expressive and useful. ===And