Re: tense and atemporality

"And Rosta" <[email protected]> Fri, 8 Aug 2003 23:32:41 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.science.linguistics.lojban.jboske
Organization Livagian Consulate
Message-ID <021201c35dfe$bb244aa0$a33c0751@oemcomputer>
xorxes:
> Consider:
>
> jbena x1 is born to x2 at time x3 [birthday] and place x4 [birthplace];
>
> What does {mi fi li 1966;10;17 ba'o jbena} mean? That the relationship
> between "mi" and "1966;10;17" is no longer occurring?
>
> Is {mi fi li 1966;10;17 cu jbena ca le cabdei} true?
>
> Does it make sense at all to use a tense with that predicate?

No. Jbena could equally well be a 2-place predicate with the time
expressed by ca.

> Or with any predicate that mentions times?

"The party is scheduled for 20/8/03". But you could analyse that
as "it is planned that the party will happen on 20/8/03". Tentatively,
then, any time argument can be paraphrsed by tense, so time arguments
are in effect tenses, but multiple tenses do make sense with a
predicate that decomposes into a superordinate and subordinate
proposition.

--And.