*intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
>Subject:      intemperate response to Lojbab on situation types
>> >> but it IS possible to look at that point event as having substructure.
>> >> So nu mi co'a citka could be ANY of the 4 Aristotelian event types.
>> >It is entirely possible that something can be conceptualized either as a
>> >point event or as an activity, but equally the same thing can be
>> >conceptualized as a blob of red cabbage.  So I don't dispute what you
>> >say, but don't find it relevant to the issue of the semantics of ZAhO.
>> Since the semantics of ZAhO are DEFINED in terms of the Aristotelian
>> event types, they are quite relevant.
>
>What is irrelevant is one's ability to conceptualize X as being of more
>than one event type.

A major purpose of language is to express or communicate
concepts/conceptualizations.  Since the Arsitotelian event types happen
to correlate closely with the types of tenses/aspects that are found in
the world's languages, it seemed appropriate to choose to represent both
in formulating the Lojban tense model.  In my own case, as language
designer, I saw an obvious usefulness in being able to distinguish the
subtype conceptualizations from each other, rather than having only
JCB's "NU" equivalent.  I find that it allows for a nuance that made
many early translations easier.  I still tend to use "nu" when being
lazy, nad one orf the Aristotelian operators when I want to convey a
very specific idea.

>> > I can believe {koa mue i koa puu i koa zirpu i koa brifu i koa cecmu i
>> > mua cui cai} - but so what?
>> I have no idea what "ko'a mu'e" or "*ko'a pu'u" might mean
>
>They are both grammatical (as far as I know), and both have obvious
>meanings. {koa mue} means "It is a point event abstraction" and {koa puu}
>means "It is a process abstraction". If you look up NU in you cmavo
>list you will find these two cmavo.

They are both cmavo, but NU by itself, nor KOhA NU, does not a
grammatical construct make.  In order to be grammatical, NU *must* be
followed by a bridi, the result of NU+bridi then being of a grammar
equivalent to a selbri.

>> (nor mu'acu'icai - intensely not-particularly exemplary???).
>
>{mua cui} means "omitting examples". According to maoste, at least.
>So {mua cui cai} = "very much omitting examples". {cui} is not the
>scale of exemplariness.

I don't see what the cai is adding.  If you have omitted the examples
without the cai, I don't see what it means to intensely do so.

>> >For some but not all gismu the definition entails that some situation is
>> >involved and it has certain properties - e.g.  {cinba} necessarily
>> >involves a kiss, and that is clearly not a state.
>> Why not?  Have you no imagination?
>
>A bicycle is not a racehorse, however good your imagination and your
>ability to view it as a racehorse. A kiss is not a state.

Maybe not in English - or maybe you haven't experienced such a kiss %^)
A state is defined as an event with an essentially abrupt beginning and
ending, a recognized duration (not a point event), and no particular
substructure within - either repeated (i.e. activity) or developing
(i.e. process).  I have certainly experienced kisses like that %^)

>> I picture statuary of two lovers embracing, and have no problem viewing
>> their act as lo za'i cinba (the statues are kissing, in addition to them
>> being la'e a perhaps more transient event of kissing)
>
>I realize that you have no problem viewing their act as lo za,i cinba.
>That is precisely the problem. If {ti za,i} is true

It is ungrammatical, and nonsense to me.

>than {ti nuncinba} is not (assuming {nuncinba} means "is a kiss").

It is one translation for "... is a kiss"

>{ti cinba za,i} or

ungrammatical

>{ti za,i zei cinba} might be fair descriptions.

Not sure why you need the zei there.  But I think you just conceded my
argument.  You accept (if I understand)

ti nu cinba  (=> ti nu zei cinba => ti nuncinba)
and by your last
ti za'i cinba  (=> ti za'i zei cinba)

as fair descriptions of the statuary.  The English translation for each
would still be "is a kiss"

>I don't see predicates as representing anything. No predicate, as far
>as I can see, has telic or durative properties, let alone by definition.

Then I don't know what you mean by a predicate - unless we are confusing
predicates and predications here.

>You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that situation types
>are somehow privileged, are somehow different from other objects.
>They're not.  You can view cabbage as gas rather than solid.  But
>cabbage is still solid.

If your cabbage is in a gaseous state, then it would no longer be
recognized by anyone as cabbage %^)

>You can view laughter as a state.  But laughter is still activity.

Yes.  But it is no more necessarily an activity than it is a state -
i.e. the definition of laughter does not require statehood (obligatory
pun omitted) nor activityhood. i.e.  I do not have to recognize repeated
substructure in the laughter in order for me to define it as laughter,
so laughter need not necessarily be an activity.

>> >Take some particular eddy in the universal flux.  Call it Ted.  Ted is
>> >what happens when the 100m sprint final is held at the LA olympics.  The
>> >property of being a race running does not inhere in Ted.  It is you who
>> >categorizes Ted as a race running (& indeed it is you who marks Ted off
>> >as distinct from the rest of the universe that is not Ted).
>> >Now, one of the things we know about the class of race runnings is that
>> >one of its membership requirements is that its members be a process,
>> This is by definition NOT a membership requirement in most any Lojbanic
>> class (the x1 of pruce being an obvious exception).
>
>Forbidding a definition of any class from including a requirement that
>members be processes is as stupid as forbidding definitions from
>including a requirement that members be, say, solid.  A race running
>must be dynamic and inherently bounded.  Therefore it is a process.  If
>it is not dynamic and inherently bounded then it's not a race running,
>and of course it's not a process.

I don't accept your definition of a race running.

Is Zeno's paradox involving a race running inherently bounded?
(Achilles vs. a tortoise???)

I'm not sure what you mean by dynamic.

>> >just as being a dog entails being a mammal.  So if you categorize Ted as
>> >a race running, you are categorizing T as a process.  If you categorize
>> >Ted as, say, a state, then you can't categorize T as a race running;
>> >rather you have to categorize T as a race-running- oidal-ish-thingy,
>> >which is a category distinct from but similar to Race Running.
>> Then in that case, virtually all Lojban predicates are
>> "-oidal-ish-thingys" and not equivalent to their apparent English
>> counterparts, because they do NOT inherently restrict to processes or
>> states in internal structure.
>
>I'll set aside the problem of you trying to view predicates as processes,
>etc. If you mean to say that all categories in Lojban are
>oidal-ish-thingies then that view is too nonsensical to be correct, and
>I must conclude that you have misunderstood something.

Perhaps.  But I am saying that the definitions of words in most
languages cover a certain amount of semantic space with vague
boundaries, and we define something as being in a Lojban "category"
(fitting into some specific place of some specific predicate is what I
interpret you to mean by this term) by it having a certain probably
fuzzy set of properties that apply.

>> I can choose to talk about "Ted" (in Lojban) and NOT recognize the
>> evolving nature of Ted, but rather see only the steady-state properties,
>> and thus think of Ted as a "state". Or I can refer to the repetitive
>> nature of the substructure of Ted (laps, paces) and think of Ted as an
>> "activity".  Or I can be thinking about how Ted is simply so incidental
>> to the eternity of the universe, that Ted is a "point event".
>
>Yes yes yes yes. All this I have said repeatedly. What you haven't grasped
>is that when you think of Ted as a state, or as an activity, you are not
>thinking of Ted as a race running.

Then you are taking a narrow view of what constitutes a "race running".
I would not limit the English concept "race running" to processes only.
And of course the Lojban concept is going to be dependent on how you
word it.  Certainly if a race running is DEFINED as only "pu'u bajryjivna"
then it is not a "za'i bajryjivna".

lojbab