Re: Anti-telic?

And Rosta wrote:
> R A Brown, On 11/07/2006 19:59:
[snip]
>> We have aspectual labels 'telic', 'atelic' & we have 'gnomic'. So what
>> is exactly is 'anti-telic'? (NB - a genuine question!)
>
> It's a good question. Telicity has to do with having intrinsic
> boundaries (& is akin to countability in nouns).
> telic = having intrinsic boundaries
> atelic [standard sense] = lacking intrinsic boundaries
>
> But one could draw the following trichotomy:
>
> telic = having intrinsic boundaries
> 'atelic' = having extrinsic boundaries
> 'antitelic = lacking boundaries of any sort (which entails, I think,
> 'eternal')
Yes, but doesn't 'gnomic' ("denoting the aspectual form expressing a
general or universal truth") imply lacking boundaries ('eternal')? So
how is 'anti-telic' different from the older & well established term
'gnomic'?

I have done some skimming through articles on telicity & atelicity, and
discover that we owe the terms to Aristotle  :)

I have also noticed that count ~ mass nouns do seem to figure to some
extent in determining whether a predicate (VP) is telic or atelic. So if
we take the countability in nouns as an analog of telicity, as And says
above, we have:
'countable' (count) - "a noun whose meaning is perceived to be a
countable entity."
'uncountable' (mass) - "a noun whose  meaning is perceived to be
anything other than a distinct countable entity."
[Quotes from Trask - but he does not, of course, use the terms
'countable' & 'uncountable']

If we were to use this terminolgy, what would 'anti-countable' mean &
how would it be different from 'uncountable'?

That is the problem I have with 'anti-telic' as opposed to 'atelic'.
Would it be useful to subdivide mass nouns into 'uncountables' and
'anti-countables'? Similarly, is t useful to subdivide what are now
called 'atelic' verbs & verb-phrases into 'atelic (proper)' and
'anti-atelic'?

[snip]
> Change the example to "Achilles is the slayer of Hector" (i.e. keeping
> the intended utterance meaning unchanged, but removing the distracting
> sentence meaning that gives rise to Ray's interpretation). In our world,
> in which Achilles and Hector are figures of legend, the state of affairs
> "A is slayer of H" does not seem to have temporal boundaries.
True - in that legend is not history. But the event of Achilles slaying
Hector is certainly perceived of as having a temporal boundary. It ended
with Hector's death. "Achilles kills Hector" is IMO clearly telic
whether the event takes place in the 'real world' or in the world of legend.

The statement "Achilles is the slayer of Hector" is akin to "I am the
writer of this email." "I am writing this email" is telic in that there
is a clear goal, that is to finish it & send it off. But it seems to me
strange to maintain that if it is rephrased as "I am the writer of this
email" it then becomes 'anti-telic'.

[snip]
>> It could be, but that is not the way it is understood in some
>> philosophic and religious systems. But 'anti-telic', as I understand
>> it, would only be appropriate if "all time" is limitless, i.e. goes on
>> for ever, and ever, and ever .........
>>
>> But even if 'eternal' is so defined as 'coextensive with all time',
>> then we would still need another term to define the notion of 'not
>> bound by space or time' even if one thought that such a notion was
>> nonsense. If the second meaning is "not allowed" then some one is
>> foisting their view point onto the semantics of a language.
>
> By my lights, 'not bound by space or time' is better than 'coextensive
> with all time' as a definition of 'eternal'
Good - we agree about 'eternal'   :)

> (and as a characterization of the various examples I gave).
I do not think we agree here. While "2 + 2 = 4" is arguably an eternal
truth, "Achilles is the slayer of Hector" is not. It had no meaning
before the Trojan War, and its 'truth' is mainly dependent upon the
writings attributed to Homer. There was a time (a very long time indeed)
before the statement had any meaning. Indeed, it was false. Even today
we do not know whether it is actually true or not; it is 'true' within
the confines of a story. Within that story, the slaying of Hector had a
clear temporal boundary.

[snip]
>>> Do most peoples frequently speak of the eternal?  Have most peoples
>>> frequently spoken of the eternal?
>>
>>
>> No.
>
>
> I think the answer is surely Yes, since the sorts of examples I gave are
> commonplace in quotidian discourse.
I suppose it depends on how one understands Eldin's question. I do not
come across people discussing whether certain statements are eternal
truths or not in everyday conversation.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"Ein Kopf, der auf seine eigene Kosten denkt,
wird immer Eingriffe in die Sprache thun."
"A mind that thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language".
J.G. Hamann, 1760