Re: [lojban] Gerunds, infinitives and other technicalities

["John E. Clifford" <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

Nice point!  All I can do is point to the aspect markers as indicative.  Of course there are other tricks: intransitive eating per se is an activity, transitive eating is a process.  For a person whose jaw has been wired shut for weeks, ordinary eating may be an achievement.  And, of course, being an eater is a state.  But I don't know what the clues are in Lojban.

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 30, 2011, at 14:27, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 1:23 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  But the types of 'nu' remain a problem,
>> since so many words have (in English at least and apparently in Lojban) several
>> readings, one at least, in each of two or more of the subtypes.  Maybe we need
>> either to disambiguate these words or provide some other clues when the nature
>> is unclear (there are obvious relations between these types and aspects, for
>> example).
> 
> Let's say, for the sake of argument, that some bridi (say "ko'a
> citka") could be taken as describing either an activity or a process,
> and that this distinction makes an important difference. We know how
> to indicate this distinction when the bridi is used as a subordinate
> clause, but how do we make the distinction at the main bridi level? If
> I say "ko'a citka", am I describing an activity or a process? And even
> in some subordinate cases, if I say "la djan djuno lo du'u ko'a
> citka", how can we tell whether what John knows is that a process is
> taking place or that an activity is taking place? If I say "lo badna
> poi ko'a citka ke'a", is it a banana that is being eaten as an
> activity or as a process? It seems to me that if marking the
> distinction between event types is important, Lojban marks that
> distinction in the wrong place. It should be marked some place where
> every bridi could be marked, not only some bridi in some special
> syntactic environment.
> 
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
> 
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