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

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 21:45:32 +0000

la and cusku di'e

>How about your starsign?

Libra has been my starsign since the day I was born and will
continue to be my starsign until I cease to exist, but in 1960
it was not the case that Libra was my starsign because I did
not exist back then. We can also make in Lojban a tensless
statement like {la libras cu tarcysinxa mi} and no tense
need be implied, but if we do put a tense in there, then for
some times it should be true and for others false.

> > 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
>
>Lojban predicates should comprise all possible predicates, in
>principle, including ones that in their nature are atemporal.

Yes. Then let me rephrase to: most Lojban gismu are temporal
in nature, and if they were not designed as temporal their
meaning will evolve towards temporality simply because it
is so easy to add tenses. Even crazy ones like {jbena}, which
has a place for the date, I think will tend to be used as
temporal: mi pu jbena, ko'a ba se jbena, etc. and not mi ca
jbena, ko'a ca jbena (unless during labour), etc. ignoring
the date place.

>We can say:
>
>"The duration of the film has been increased in the new DVD release"
>"The duration of films on TV is slightly less than in the cinema,
>because of the frame-rate difference"
>"Waiting times in doctors' surgeries have been growing longer"
>"My daily shower used to take 10 minutes but now it's down to 5"
>
>and so forth. There is no prohibition on the use of tense with
>{nanca}. {nanca} expresses things' durations. Things whose durations
>change over time can be described with tense+nanca.

Ok, I agree with those. They all refer to generic wholes. However,
when you are describing something that is not a finished event,
its duration grows as time goes by.

> > I think the dynamic view is also valid
>
>It probably is, but I still feel that the two views call for
>different predicates. The one measures duration of an event from
>its beginning to its end. The other measures how much time an
>event has spread through at a given point in time.

I think the same predicate with a different value in x1 will
do as well.

>The distinction seems to be analogous between the intrinsic
>spatial dimensions of an object -- its height, breadth, depth
>-- and the actual spatial coordinates it occupies. E.g. on the
>one hand I am six foot tall, but as I am currently sitting
>down I am occupying an area of space about four foot in
>its longest dimension.

Yes, and I could use the same predicate {mitre} to say
how tall you rise here-and-now.

>An abstract object can have intrinsic dimensions without occupying
>actual space (e.g. a design for a building), and can have intrinsic
>duration without occupying actual time (e.g. a film).

Yes, I agree. I just don't think the abstract object as a whole
is the same thing as the object as it happens.

> > 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
>
>I haven't thought enough about the meaning of ZAhO in sumti. But
>my impression is that the distinction you make is still between
>types of dynamic, time-occupying durativity, rather than nondynamic,
>inherent-dimensional durativity.

{le ca'o nu} is the on-going event. {le co'i nu} is the event
as a whole. The on-going event, at a given time, has only
managed to occupy part of the duration it will have occupied
once it has finished. It is something under construction, and
I think it is proper to consider its dimentions as the dimensions
of only those parts that have been realized.

>Arguably {mentu} can measure dynamic, spreading occupation of
>time, atemporal static occupation of time, and intrinsic temporal
>dimension, but if so, the measuree is different in each case.

Yes, we agree. On the other hand, {mi} can refer both to the
abstract atemporal person that I sometimes imagine to be or to
this physical changing aggregate of molecules that has been
spreading in space-time, taking a chunk of 36 years and varying
volume.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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