RE:I almost caught the train

[pycyn@aol.com]

Subj: Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train
Date: 3/13/2001
To: xod@sixgirls.org



In a message dated 3/13/2001 1:30:01 PM Central Standard Time,
xod@sixgirls.org writes:

.<  Why would I say "I was on the verge of
> fighting" unless I went on "when the so-and-so happened" or "but Igot
hold
> of myself and cooled down" or some such?  So, saying it and not adding
> "when..." implicates that I did not actually fight. (Short Grice lesson,
> details omitted to make the central point clear.)


I don't buy this last point. In telling a story, I could reasonably say"I
was on the verge of fighting when my phone rang, but I ignored it and we
fought.">

Your case is one of mine, not contrary to it.  The inchoative *is* correlated
with another event -- the phone ringing -- and thus, of itself, says nothing
about whether the fight occurred.  You had to add that it did, but you could
equally have added that it did not.  Without the correlative event, however,
the implicature is to non-occurence in past tense cases ("most of the time a
cooperative interlocutor says such a thing the event referred to inchoatively
did not occur.")

<Now I assert that pu'o
should not be taken to imply anything about whether or not the event ever
occurs; only that it seems likely to.>

Present tense {pu'o} does mean that the event is likely to occur, but is no
guarantee.  Past tense {pu'o} standing alone actually suggests that the event
did *not* occur even though it was at the time likely to. (Strictly, itis
the fact that the speaker USED {pu'o} that implies this, not the word itself,
which entails the likelihood but nothing more about the actuality.)
{pu'o} itself never entails that the event does take place or that it does
not.  Its use in certain contexts implicates that the event does not take
place, in most contexts, however, it implicates nothing beyond its
entailments.