Re: Locating a Sentence's Action in Time Saul Epstein Tue, 6 Oct 1998 19:34:05 -0500 Quotes from: Rob Zook Date: Monday, October 5, 1998 4:22 PM > Saul Epstein wrote: > > > Quotes From: Rob Zook > > Date: Monday, October 05, 1998 12:42 PM > > > > >Otherwise, as beneficial as ambiguity may be in some instances, > > >a word with -he seems too ambiguous. > > > > Of course. Unless you just mean "in," which happens often enough. > > The word "in" has at least 10 different meanings, most of which are > only apparent by the context. I mean specifically that even the > meaning "within the limits or bounds of" seems too ambiguous > without reference to time, space, or no-space. But perhaps I'm just > being overly picky here. Unless one aims to make Vulcan capable of context-free, inambiguous utterances, I think you might be being a little picky. I don't really have room to make such accusations, however. ;-) I only meant that there may be plenty of times when unmodified "in" is sufficient reference. Just as there are definitely plenty of times when it isn't. > > Yes. I still don't see the, uh, semantic difference. When > > translated into English, the initiation moment of the speech can > > come out as a noun or a verb. The tense of the sentence is > > independent from the concurrence of the action thereto, and from > > any referred-to phase of any of the participant entities. > > (Excluding, in normal circumstances, any combinations that would > > defy time.) > > Something is going on here that's really unclear to me. You keep > saying, "yes, but I don't understand". That seems really confusing. > I'm saying that there may be no simple way to translate this into > English. Yes. ;-) Sorry, but what I think I've said is more like, "Yes, but that isn't what I was talking about" alternating with, "Yes, but I don't see what difference that makes." In this particular instance, your translations and your chart both confirm, for me, that I understand the distinction you're making, and that it seems, to me, to be the distinction between two different ways of looking at the same thing. Probably as an emphasis technique. > However, that does not mean that in Vulcan there is no semantic > difference. The overlap of the interval of the action with the > tense moment, and the relationship of a particular point in time > in the action, and either the tense moment or some other temporal > referent seem like two staggeringly different things to me. > > Now are you saying what I see as a staggering difference you see as > not significant? Well, essentially, yes. I appreciate the difference, to be sure, otherwise I doubt I would have spent hours back in the early part of this year banging my head against my keyboard trying to find words through which you could see the difference. (I'm a little startled to have suddenly succeeded.) But the concurrence of an action and its sentence's tense IMPLIES certain things about the relationship of some of that action's phases to its sentence's tense. That essential similarity lies at the root of much of my previous misunderstanding of the purpose of this whole contour business. My current -- I thought, better -- understanding motivated me to speak in terms of that similarity, because I am still tired of speaking past each other. I see Concurrence and Phase as different enough to deserve distinct morphology. If they seem so staggeringly different to you, why did you bring the latter up? Let's leave specification of parts as referents for other parts to its own chapter. > > >We could add some concurrencies to both the action and the > > >temporal reference entity and say: > > > > > >lihe th'prazoshila spokhi th'kahszocuwanhe > > > > > >This would be even more difficult to translate into English: > > > > > >"in the past, the initiation of my speaking to spock (which > > >began before now and ended before now) occurred during my > > >kahs'wan (which began and ended before now)." > > > > > >Now the "occurred during" comes from the aspects -zo- and > > >-cu- and locative -he occurring on the entity word kahs'wan. > > > > Beautiful! And I mean that. I very much want to avoid getting > > so complicated in an introductory grammar... > > Oh, of course. For most part I think one or the other, either > concurrency or "phase" would suffice. But at last one of them > seems necessary to get beyond baby talk. But for just baby talk > tense seems all that's necessary. > > So perhaps we should mention both in the introductory text, but > not mention how they work when mixed? I had in mind describing both and mentioning that they could be combined, but not describing how. That description would then be part of an advanced text. > For example, one Vulcan might say to the other: "When did you talk > about quantum physics in your physics lecture yesterday?" Then the > response might be "At the beginning of my lecture", in which case > the most precise and yet still simple response might be th'praculahe> "initiation phase in my past speech". [...] > While if the Vulcan was asked how long did he speak about quantum > physics he might say, the "beginning interval > of my past speech". Technically, these answers are permissible truncations of full sentences: "(I spoke about QP) ? the beginning of my speech." <(lehe th'pra[COMPLETE]la [about] QP-he) th'pra[?]lahe> where the question mark is..,something I'm not clear on. Is the difference between the two answers that one specifies a point in time while the other specifies a range? Because neither performs the same function as the marker for complete concurrence... Maybe your staggering difference seems insignificant to me because there's an even more staggering difference between everything you're talking about and what I'm talking about... > We have to keep in mind that your average Vulcan likely has the > equivalent to a doctorate in the philosophy of science, and several > bachlorates in specific sciences, arts and/or engineering > technologies. Mm. I guess I have a somewhat more diverse picture of Vulcan. Not important... > The difference I see hinges on this: what is being related to the > tense moment, an instantaneous point in time ("phase") or an > interval of time (concurrency)? At least that's what your diagram > indicates to me. That concurrency speaks of how intervals of time > overlap with the interval of the tense moment. Well, we may be looking at different differences. Concurrence, as I'd like to define it, has the special purpose of relating a sentence's action to its tense. Whether either is a point or a range will vary with the topic and the nature of the discussion. You seem to be describing the specification of parts of actions or processes, either as points or ranges, for whatever purpose. That's important, worthwhile. It's NOT what I'm talking about, though it complements it. > > >How does one define the boundaries > > >of the tense moment? > > > > Contextually. Tense is fluid and imprecise, which is largely why > > Concurrence exists. Vulcan is more precise than English, since > > it has more tenses. But from one sentence to the next, present > > may mean "right now," or "today," or "this year." Past and > > Future, potentially extending ad infinitum in their respective > > directions, are even less exact. > > Maybe I should rephrase that, can you give me a "text book example" > definition of "tense moment"? Not without a textbook. The only appropriate one I ever had was excruciatingly dense and dull, and the bookstore wouldn't buy it back. If I can find it, I'll quote you some gibberish. -- from Saul Epstein locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus "Surakri' ow'phahcur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'phahrka the's'hi surakecha'." -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at