From lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed Apr 10 21:59:58 1996 Received: from punt3.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA11289 ; Wed, 10 Apr 96 21:59:40 BST Received: from punt-3.mail.demon.net by mailstore for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk id 829161105:14696:0; Wed, 10 Apr 96 19:31:45 BST Received: from relay-1.mail.demon.net ([158.152.1.140]) by punt-3.mail.demon.net id aa14056; 10 Apr 96 19:30 +0100 Received: from cunyvm.cuny.edu ([128.228.1.2]) by relay-1.mail.demon.net id aa07973; 10 Apr 96 19:28 +0100 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 4587; Wed, 10 Apr 96 14:22:34 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8134; Wed, 10 Apr 96 14:22:01 EDT Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 14:22:03 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: *intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Multiple recipients of list LOJBAN Message-ID: <829160948.7973.0@cunyvm.cuny.edu> Status: R >From: ucleaar >Subject: intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types >> >> but it IS possible to look at that point event as having substructure. >> >> So nu mi co'a citka could be ANY of the 4 Aristotelian event types. >> >It is entirely possible that something can be conceptualized either as a >> >point event or as an activity, but equally the same thing can be >> >conceptualized as a blob of red cabbage. So I don't dispute what you >> >say, but don't find it relevant to the issue of the semantics of ZAhO. >> Since the semantics of ZAhO are DEFINED in terms of the Aristotelian >> event types, they are quite relevant. > >What is irrelevant is one's ability to conceptualize X as being of more >than one event type. A major purpose of language is to express or communicate concepts/conceptualizations. Since the Arsitotelian event types happen to correlate closely with the types of tenses/aspects that are found in the world's languages, it seemed appropriate to choose to represent both in formulating the Lojban tense model. In my own case, as language designer, I saw an obvious usefulness in being able to distinguish the subtype conceptualizations from each other, rather than having only JCB's "NU" equivalent. I find that it allows for a nuance that made many early translations easier. I still tend to use "nu" when being lazy, nad one orf the Aristotelian operators when I want to convey a very specific idea. >> > I can believe {koa mue i koa puu i koa zirpu i koa brifu i koa cecmu i >> > mua cui cai} - but so what? >> I have no idea what "ko'a mu'e" or "*ko'a pu'u" might mean > >They are both grammatical (as far as I know), and both have obvious >meanings. {koa mue} means "It is a point event abstraction" and {koa puu} >means "It is a process abstraction". If you look up NU in you cmavo >list you will find these two cmavo. They are both cmavo, but NU by itself, nor KOhA NU, does not a grammatical construct make. In order to be grammatical, NU *must* be followed by a bridi, the result of NU+bridi then being of a grammar equivalent to a selbri. >> (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. >> >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 %^) 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 %^) >> I picture statuary of two lovers embracing, and have no problem viewing >> their act as lo za'i cinba (the statues are kissing, in addition to them >> being la'e a perhaps more transient event of kissing) > >I realize that you have no problem viewing their act as lo za,i cinba. >That is precisely the problem. If {ti za,i} is true It is ungrammatical, and nonsense to me. >than {ti nuncinba} is not (assuming {nuncinba} means "is a kiss"). It is one translation for "... is a kiss" >{ti cinba za,i} or ungrammatical >{ti za,i zei cinba} might be fair descriptions. Not sure why you need the zei there. 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. The English translation for each would still be "is a kiss" >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. >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 %^) >You can view laughter as a state. But laughter is still activity. Yes. But it is no more necessarily an activity than it is a state - i.e. the definition of laughter does not require statehood (obligatory pun omitted) nor activityhood. i.e. I do not have to recognize repeated substructure in the laughter in order for me to define it as laughter, so laughter need not necessarily be an activity. >> >Take some particular eddy in the universal flux. Call it Ted. Ted is >> >what happens when the 100m sprint final is held at the LA olympics. The >> >property of being a race running does not inhere in Ted. It is you who >> >categorizes Ted as a race running (& indeed it is you who marks Ted off >> >as distinct from the rest of the universe that is not Ted). >> >Now, one of the things we know about the class of race runnings is that >> >one of its membership requirements is that its members be a process, >> This is by definition NOT a membership requirement in most any Lojbanic >> class (the x1 of pruce being an obvious exception). > >Forbidding a definition of any class from including a requirement that >members be processes is as stupid as forbidding definitions from >including a requirement that members be, say, solid. 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'm not sure what you mean by dynamic. >> >just as being a dog entails being a mammal. So if you categorize Ted as >> >a race running, you are categorizing T as a process. If you categorize >> >Ted as, say, a state, then you can't categorize T as a race running; >> >rather you have to categorize T as a race-running- oidal-ish-thingy, >> >which is a category distinct from but similar to Race Running. >> Then in that case, virtually all Lojban predicates are >> "-oidal-ish-thingys" and not equivalent to their apparent English >> counterparts, because they do NOT inherently restrict to processes or >> states in internal structure. > >I'll set aside the problem of you trying to view predicates as processes, >etc. If you mean to say that all categories in Lojban are >oidal-ish-thingies then that view is too nonsensical to be correct, and >I must conclude that you have misunderstood something. Perhaps. But I am saying that the definitions of words in most languages cover a certain amount of semantic space with vague boundaries, and we define something as being in a Lojban "category" (fitting into some specific place of some specific predicate is what I interpret you to mean by this term) by it having a certain probably fuzzy set of properties that apply. >> I can choose to talk about "Ted" (in Lojban) and NOT recognize the >> evolving nature of Ted, but rather see only the steady-state properties, >> and thus think of Ted as a "state". Or I can refer to the repetitive >> nature of the substructure of Ted (laps, paces) and think of Ted as an >> "activity". Or I can be thinking about how Ted is simply so incidental >> to the eternity of the universe, that Ted is a "point event". > >Yes yes yes yes. All this I have said repeatedly. 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". lojbab