From lojbab@lojban.org Fri Oct 05 06:52:14 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 5 Oct 2001 13:50:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 87320 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2001 13:50:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 5 Oct 2001 13:50:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-3.cais.net) (205.252.14.73) by mta1 with SMTP; 5 Oct 2001 13:52:12 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (dynamic66.cl7.cais.net [205.177.20.66]) by stmpy-3.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f95DqBC58748 for ; Fri, 5 Oct 2001 09:52:11 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20011005094331.00ddbd40@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 09:48:50 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: translation exercise In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 11:22 PM 10/4/01 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote: > >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? I'm not sure, but the example I've been thinking of is the perverse converse where capturing would not prevent anything, and might enable. John and George are convicts in the same prison. John escapes, but is recaptured because George gives the warden information about his plans. Then we can say "John was captured before he killed someone (George)" and we have the non-preventive meaning. Indeed it is plausible that John could not have killed George UNLESS he was captured. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org