*intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

> 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