From jcrossco@bellsouth.net Thu Oct 04 18:39:32 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcrossco@bellsouth.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 5 Oct 2001 01:37:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 85168 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2001 01:37:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 5 Oct 2001 01:37:45 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n32.groups.yahoo.com) (10.1.2.221) by mta1 with SMTP; 5 Oct 2001 01:39:32 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: jcrossco@bellsouth.net Received: from [10.1.10.93] by n32.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 05 Oct 2001 01:39:32 -0000 Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 01:39:30 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: translation exercise Message-ID: <9pj30i+u5da@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 1659 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 216.78.101.124 From: jcrossco@bellsouth.net --- In lojban@y..., "Jorge Llambias" wrote: > > la jrc cusku di'e > > >Apparently "before" is ambiguous in that it can signal preemption, or > >temporal precedence, or both. > > I think the preemption is not really a part of "before". If you > say that X happens before any Y happens, and it is in the nature > of X that its happening prevents Y from happening, then naturally > X happening before Y preempts Y from happening. But this only > works when we already know that X will prevent Y, and it is just > a consequence of the temporal precedence. If the meaning of > preemption was part of "before", then you should be able to say > "X before Y" meaning that X preempts Y when normally X would > not preempt Y. Can you think of any such case? Can you think of a case of actual retroactive preemption? Preemption is negative causality (Is it not?), and a cause must precede its effect. But not all assertions of temporal precedence entail causality. Post hoc sed non propter hoc. But "before" is used in both cases. I think "before" gets the hypothesized "preemption" meaning as an important special case of temporal precedence--causality--and is essentially a matter of emphasis in English usage, and the ambiguity must be resolved from context. English is not yacc-able. Similarly, I suspect "B follows from A," which can be a purely logical relationship, is derived from metaphor based on temporal sequence, suggesting causality, which is easily conflated with the concept of implication in English usage and Volkgeist. Of course, a quick check of the OED might lay all this to rest. Wish I had one handy.