[Attempto] Can attempto describe this?

[David Whitten]

I doubt that Attempto Controlled English (ACE) can process that
sentence without any changes.

My thoughts below.

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Theodore H. Smith <delete at elfdata.com> wrote:
>
> "How can someone fall so far, without realising it?"
>
> It's a tricky one. But it is very a interesting description that uses some important concepts to humans.
>
> I attempted to break down the sentance into parts, and then recombine the parts:
>
>         * I could not find how to do: "so far" or "so anything"
>
>         * I found this works: "how can someone fall?"
>
>         * didn't work: "how can someone fall far?"
>                 I couldn't find how to use adjectives on the verb: "how can someone fall quickly?"
>

One issue is ellipsis. I think it is clear that ACE deals better with
words included as opposed to being only implicitly present.

"How can someone fall so far"  is at heart a reference to comparison
with a standard, without mentioning the metric that is being used in
the comparison.
A question fragment which is close to the same meaning, in my opinion,
is: "How can someone fall such a distance below the initial reference
point"

I have my doubts that a sentence containing this fragment can be
recognized by ACE either,

>         * "Without" seems to use nouns?
>                 works: "Fred runs without Mary."
>                 error: "Fred runs without thinking."
>
> So how can I describe the concept "X1 fell so far, without X1 realising X1 fell so far"?
>

"without realizing it" could similarly be paraphrased by "and did not
realize it", however I think ACE is not capable of recognizing that
"it" refers to the state of falling below the initial reference point.
I think that  ACE probably limits the referents of "it" to be other
nouns mentioned in the sentence, so that the state of being in a
particular position would probably have to be explicit.

I'm guessing that a variant of

X1 fell from an initial position X1 to a lower position X3. X1 did not
realize that X1 was at the lower position X3.

Best regards,
David

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