Subject: RE: [lojban] mi nanca li (was: Re: Newbie says hi

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 14:31:56 +0000

la and cusku di'e

>I certainly don't agree that "normal" predicates are not atemporal.
>The temporality is determined by the sense of the predicate. Some,
>like {cadzu}, are plainly true of certain time segments and false
>of other time segments. Others, like {mamta}, are not plainly true
>of certain time segments and false of others.

I don't think mamta can be true of a time segment where the
referent of one of the sumti does not exist. My mother was
not my mother in 1960. {i naku le mi mamta cu mamta mi
ca li 1960}. Also, I think mamta can even be used for things
like "she was my mother for a few days".

Perhaps the way I would put it is that Lojban predicates are
easily temporalized. The grammar certainly allows the use of
tenses with any predicate, so it is natural to try to give
meaning to such constructions.

>I see no forcing
>going on. Durations do seem to me to be atemporal -- that the first
>world war lasted for 4 years seems to me be as true of the future
>is it is of the past.

Even in English, the "lasting" is temporal. In 1900 it would last
4 years, in 1950 it had lasted 4 years, but in 1916 it was lasting
2 years already. Durations are fixed only when seen from the
outside. Within the duration, they are evolving.

>Certainly I wouldn't see a necessity to
>insert an implicit or explicit {pu} in "the first world war nanca
>li vo", and nor do I see a necessity to insert an implicit {ba} in
>"2003 nanca li pa".

I agree, when considering it as a whole event. But things
change when the perspective is from the middle of it.

>If I am arriving late at a theatre, I mean entirely different
>things when I ask "How long does the performance last?" and "How
>much time has elapsed since the performance began?" -- I don't see
>these as merely different standards for measuring duration; rather,
>they're durations of quite different things.

I agree that the standard is not the issue. I would say that
you can mean two different things by "the performance". In one
case it is the whole thing (not yet realized), in the other it
refers to what has already transpired. {le ca'o nu tigni cu ca mentu
li pamu}, "the performance (which is happening) is now 15 minutes
in duration" vs {le ca'o nu tigni cu ba ba'o mentu li sono}, "the
performance (which is happening) will have been 90 minutes in
duration (once it is over)". Those apply while {le nu tigni} refers
to something that is happening, {le ca'o nu tigni}. In other
contexts, only the total duration will be relevant, we can then
talk of {le co'i nu tigni}.

> > We can say: {ca li pasobici mi nanca li paze}, "In 1983 I was 17",
> > or {ca li renoreno mi nanca li muvo romu'ei le du'u mi za'o jmive},
> > "In 2020 I will be 54 if I'm still alive"
>
>This I see as an abuse of {nanca}, perhaps influenced by our native
>tongues.

But then you don't allow the use of tense with {nanca}. You
don't allow things to extend their duration: they always have
the duration they will achieve when they are over and only
that duration. I prefer to see duration as a changing property.

> > There is nothing strange about {mi} nanca-ing different
> > numbers at different times
>
>I suppose the way to get the result you want is to take the meaning
>of {mi}-qua-event as variable: that is, {mi} is an event that
>spreads through time. In this case the issue is not about nanca
>but rather about whether we see events as occupying a certain time
>span atemporally, or as dynamically spreading through time.

Yes, that may be it. I think the dynamic view is also valid.

> > The other perspective, considering that {mi} labels some
> > timeless object with a duration that goes from birth to
> > death, does not seem to be all that useful
>
>It seems to me to be very useful, and indeed is very much the way
>I intuitively conceive of durations. I see the first world war
>as nondynamically occupying a certain region of spacetime, I don't
>see us as being in the aftermath of WWI having dynamically spread
>through 4 years.

I think both views are compatible. Seen from afar, the dynamics
lose their gravity and we just see a blot, but we can always
zoom in and examine how it developed.

> > >This would generalize to, say, "At that time, I had been living in 
>London
> > >for 8 months", as well as to "I am 18 years old"
> >
> > I would say: {ca le co'e le nu mi xabju la londn cu masti li bi}
>
>Whereas my natural inclination would be to take {le nu mi xabju la londn
>cu masti li bi} to mean that 8 months is the total duration of the
>entire event of my residence in London.

I think it can mean both, and we can use {le ca'o nu} and
{le co'i nu} to distinguish the two when context doesn't
make it clear which one we mean.

>Likewise for "the film lasts
>2 hours", "March is 31 days long", "television ad breaks last 3.5
>minutes", etc.

Yes, but also: the film has already lasted 30 minutes, March
is already 20 days old (odd, but you get the meaning), this
ad break has already been going on for 5 minutes, etc.

>"How long is the ad break?" means something different
>to me from "How long has the ad break been going on for?". (Of course,
>once the ad break is over, "How long did the ad break go on for?"
>ends up meaning the same thing as "How long was the ad break?".)

Yes. But I think {mentu} can take care of both cases.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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