BMOORE@SRI-AI.ARPA (07/20/84)
From: Bob Moore <BMOORE@SRI-AI.ARPA>
[Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by permission of the author.]
The difficulty of analyzing the semantics of tense and aspect in
natural language has been widely discussed in the past few years, but
I hadn't realized the extent to which this problem plagued medieval
scholars until I found this item in The Oxford Book of Oxford (Jan
Morris, ed.):
Three Oxford academics were deputed to wait upon Henry III
in 1266 to ask permission for a postern gate through the
city wall at Oxford. The King (in Latin) asked them what
they wanted:
First scholar: We ask the licence for the making of a gate
through the city wall.
Second scholar: No, we do not want the making of a gate, for
that would mean the gate was always in the making and never
made. What we want is a gate made.
Third scholar: No, we do not want a gate made, for a gate
made must already be in existence somewhere else, and so we
should be taking somebody else's gate.
The King told them to go away and make up their minds. When
they returned in three days' time they had agreed on a
formula:
We ask permission that the making of a gate be made.
[Ostium fieri in facto esse].
Permission was granted."