Re: Anti-telic?

Sai Emrys wrote:
> Yahya, please snip your replies a lot more. Having a page or two of
> quoted material followed by "I agree" is excessive and hard to read.
> :-(
Yep - I was intending to go though Sai's replies & comment - but this
will need some time   :)

However, I will reply to just one part, as I think it is relevant:
[ME]
>>t does imply that a few languages may have specifically gnomic forms.
>>> But did Sai mean simply 'gnomic' when he said 'anti-telic'? I do not
>>> know. If he did, then I've been "boxing shadows" again    ;)
[YAHYA]
> But what interesting shadows!  ;-)
Yes, since this thread has begun I've started reading up a lot more
seriously on the concepts of telicity & atelicity. I'm always learning
as a result of this list  ;)

I feel I am not really in a position to advance this thread forwarder
till I've read more. One thing that is becoming apparent is that these
concepts seem to be related not to verbs per-se, but to predicates or,
in the 'modern' terminology, verb phrases. But I need to read up more.

>
> To get back to the point:
> I don't believe that metaphysical questions of whether the universe
> can *be* eternal or not are at all relevant. I can claim that it is,
> ergo I can say that it is, ergo I can have a way to say it. Viz. what
> I and others said before about exaggeration or pragmatics of scope.
Clearly you can claim the universe is eternal or that it is not eternal.
The English language, as I see it, is quite capable of letting you do
this unambiguously. This does not, as far as I can see, require the need
for any 'anti-telic' verb phrase aspect.

> The way I'd define it (borrowing from previous again):
> * telic: having a necessary bound, i.e. intrinsic to the event (it's
> not possibly to keep doing it indefinitely)
> e.g. eating a finite thing, killing, etc
>
> * atelic: being POTENTIALLY bound, but not necessarily; i.e. the bound
> is extrinsic to the event itself (something has to interrupt or stop
> it, or else it'll keep going indefinitely)
> e.g. dating someone, writing a journal vs a novel (though arguably a
> journal is bound by your death, I'd say this is an instance where I
> could extend effective 'forever' to be 'until I die'), going hunting
> (though ditto) etc
>
> * antitelic: NOT being able to be bound, i.e. it is not possible to
> interrupt or stop the event once started
That is the rub. It seems to me that stating that something positively
can not ever be stopped once it has started _is_ to adopt a metaphysical
position. Clearly, if one considers that time and space, as we
understand it, ends with the "Big Crunch" then ultimately everything is
interrupted and stopped.

What I was *asking* is whether it is possible to say that it is possible
to state that anything is not able to be bound, i.e. is not able to be
interrupted or stopped once it is started, without taking a particular
metaphysical viewpoint. 'Atelic', as currently understood, leaves the
question open, with no metaphysical implications.

I have already conceded that in a _conworld_ this can be different. A
conworld does not, for example, have to obey the laws of physics as we
know them. To one's own sub-creation, one is God.

> e.g. the existence of the universe,
....will come to an end, according to some. Indeed, some see the
creation & evolution of the universe as a telic process.

> states-of-the-world-history (viz
> Achilles), gods dating (ha),
Rather states-of-human-legend, methinks.   :)

While there may have been a historic character called Achilles, there is
no evidence for this other than legend. As for gods dating...

> humans dating (exaggeration - eg "they're
> sooooo cuuuuute together it's impossible they'll break up"),
Each date does not go on for ever. A date is a telic process. We may
have, and often do have, an series of individual dates. "He is dating
Lois" is atelic, but "He has a date with Lois this evening" is telic, as
I understand the terms.

> many
> belief-system-dependent things (e.g. Atlas holding up the earth,
> assuming he's under some sort of permanent everlasting "Hercules won't
> interfere again" spell),
Nope - Perseus interfered. Atlas got turned into the Mount Atlas - and
that won't last for ever.      :)

> expansion of the universe (depending on your
> astrophysics),
Quite so.

> universal tendency towards entropy, WoT world cycling,
> etc
WoT word cycling is, as I understand it, a conworld thing - and I've
already conceded that anything is possible in a conworld.

>
> Note that this in no way addresses how the event STARTED, only whether
> it has a necessary, potential, or impossible ENDpoint.
Yes, I know.

> Difference from gnomic:
> 1. Gnomic AFAIU would require it to be universally true, i.e. have no
> finite start point before which it may not have been true (e.g 2+2=4)
True.

> 2. Gnomic seems exclusively a state-of-the-world or
> truths-about-the-world sort of thing, whereas antitelic would be a
> type of (forever-continuing) action, of which existence or state is a
> subset
Yes, gnomic is to do with _states_ whereas, I am discovering, telic &
atelic are to do with processes.

> 3. Antitelic
I do not understand what point 3 is.

> 4. They're different grammatical categories
Semantic as well, surely. Any explicit grammaticalization of these
categories seem to be be related to syntax.

> The point about mass vs count nouns seems spurious to me; just because
> they happen to be analagous in some ways does not mean they are
> NECESSARILY linked or that the limitation of one implies the
> limitation of the other.
I do not think that either And or I said they were NECESSARILY linked.
But I agree with And that they are analogous in certain ways. Analogies
are useful, I think, in that we can examine how far they are similar and
in what ways they differ. Can a similar trichotomy be applied to the
concept of 'countability' as that which you are suggesting for
'telicity'? If the answer is "yes", then surely it helps understand what
you are getting at. But if the answer is "no", then we ask 'Why not?',
'What are the differences between the concepts of countability &
telicity?', 'Is the trichotomy proposed for telicity valid.' IMO
analogies can be useful as long as, of course, we remember that they are
analogies.

But as I read more, I am finding that telicity is a feature of the verb
_and_ its arguments. The concept of countability does seem to figure to
some extent; for example, I discover that "eat apples" is atelic, but
"eat two apples" is telic.

But, I stress again, my comments about 'anti-telic' relate only to
_natlangs_. You did ask "Any natlang or conlang examples of this?" I
know of no natlang examples.


I have made it clear more than once, I do _not_ say the idea in invalid
in a conlang. That would be foolish. After all, is not one reason for
creating a conlang to experiment with different or unusual ideas. Are
there, indeed, any conlang examples of this?


--
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

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