Subject: Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 21:15:24 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 13 Mar 2001, Jorge Llambias wrote:

>
>
> la xod cusku di'e
>
> >If I pause my retelling of a story at the time right before
> >a fight appears to break out, I don't see why my listeners should assume
> >anything about whether or not the fight actually occurs.
>
> They shouldn't. On the other hand, if you tell me "you know,
> this morning Peter and Paul were on the verge of fighting
> when the bell rang", then I will probably assume that the
> fighting did not occur. Why? Because if it had occured, the
> information you are giving me is fairly irrelevant, you
> would have told me that they fought, not that they were on
> the verge. It is nothing more than an assumption, of course,
> based on the further assumption that your purpose in
> telling me what you tell me is more than just uttering
> true but uninformative or misleading statements. I will
> assume that you are telling me the most relevant fact about
> their fighting, and if being on the verge is the most
> relevant then they probably did not actually fight.

The point may not be that the verge of fighting was the most important
thing; only that THAT is when the bell rang.

Further, the phrase 'verge of fighting' means that it's more likely than
not that the fight will occur Why then wouldn't you assume that fight did
occur?

Really, you would assume the fight occurred if the event was completely
unrelated and didn't stop it, and you'd assume that fight did not occur if
the event was related and thus prevented it.

For instance, "Peter and Paul were on the verge of fighting when the
teacher entered the room", one might assume the teacher stopped the fight.
But with "Peter and Paul were on the verge of fighting when, miles
away and unknown to either of them, the Taliban started shelling Buddhist
statues", it's assumed this didn't intrude on the fight, therefore it
continued and occurred.

However, here's an event that is related but probably won't impede the
fight: "Peter and Paul were on the verge of fighting when Mary told Peter
that Paul had molested his pet Lemur the week before."

It seems both assumptions are defensible. Perhaps we should assume
neither, as a general principle, but only as context implies.