TECH: situation types

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

pc:
> And's description of the current view about situations shows that
> Aristotle's system seems to have held up pretty well for another couple of
> decades on top of its couple of millennia.  The terminology has been
> tightened a bit -- or at least changed -- and perhaps some of the
> criteria mainly used have changed (it is hard to tell from this brief
> description but the cyclic/non-cyclic line of my day seems to have been
> replaced by something about energy use). Still, the pattern of four types
> remains, with most of the contrasts intact, and -- I bet -- most
> situations still assigned to the same type, even if for a different
> reason.  Happily, Lojban decided to take the types, not the
> classification, as its base and so can proceed without serious changes.

The criteria, and the ways of defining them, are my personal views,
and in part (e.g. the bit about energy use) originate with me & are
not commonplace. Other parts are to be found elsewhere. I'm not trying
to push any particular analysis. Also, it's a few years since I was into
this stuff, so things may have moved on (tho not with me noticing).

The important bit to realize is that although those 4 sit. types bear
up fairly well, they are little used. Rather, the most common
distinctions are states v. events (i.e. processes/activities/achievements)
and telic (process/achiev.) v. atelic (state/activities). Duration
(achiev v. the rest) is not that important. And of course if one
added extra parameters, such as the presence or absence of change, say,
then we'd have more than 4 combos.

Thus, enshrining the trad 4 types in NU with their own cmavo is a bit
gratuitous. That's all. No terrible logical fallacies committed, or
anything like that.

Jorge:
> And:
> > Activities (and states) are atelic; accomplishments and achievements
> > are telic. Telicity means having intrinsic boundaries rather than
> > extrinsically imposed boundaries. The semantics of boundaries is not
> > confined to situations.
> Does telicity have to do with _having_ intrinsic boundaries or
> _constituting_ an intrinsic boundary?

Having (processes) or constituting (achievements).

> I would have said that events that correspond to a change of state
> would constitute an important class (to die, to become, to cease, to
> make, to kill, to (come to) understand, etc.)

This is widely recognized. What is not widely recognized is that such
events are telic only if the undergoer is bounded and if the "path"
of change is bounded. E.g. "to cool" in sense "become cooler" rather
than "become cool" is atelic.

> More or less related: does {jimpe} mean being in a state of understanding
> something, or does it mean to come to understand something? "Understand"
> can have both meanings in English. Does {mi ba'o jimpe} mean that I no
> longer understand or that I've already understood something?

Strictly speaking, there is no official sumti place for the event
- {jimpe} is better glossed "understander (of)". I think to specify
the nature of the event you'd use {coa jimpe} and {cao jimpe} [begin
& continue, I mean]. This is why I think ZAhO work quasitanruishly
like NAhE. I think I'm in the middle of a discussion with Lojbab on
this matter.

---
And