Envelope-to: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org
Delivery-date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:26:57 -0800
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:25:45 -0500
To: jbovlaste@lojban.org
Subject: [jbovlaste] Re: Proposed lujvo
Message-ID: <20091216202545.GK32323@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <783860.88389.qm@web88002.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <96f789a60912161145l65ed1dbbled03d08fd64a4421@mail.gmail.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <96f789a60912161145l65ed1dbbled03d08fd64a4421@mail.gmail.com>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11)
From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
Sender: jbovlaste-bounce@lojban.org
Errors-to: jbovlaste-bounce@lojban.org
Precedence: bulk
Reply-to: jbovlaste@lojban.org
Content-Length: 1414
Lines: 39

Michael Turniansky scripsit:
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 5:42 PM, A. PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com> wrote:
> > Comments please,
> >
> >
> > 1) zanpa'a(optimistic)
> >
> > p1 is optimistic about p2 (event) with regard to z2, with expected likelihood p3 (0-1)
> >
> > 2) malpa'a(pessimistic)
> >
> > p1 is pessimistic about p2 (event) with regard to m2, with expected likelihood p3 (0-1)
> >
> 
>    1&2:   Isn't pacna always optimistic by nature?  hope/wish
> for/desire doesn't sound very neutral to me.  

Indeed.

Furthermore, this is a misuse of mal- and zan-, which indicate the
speaker's attitude toward the predication or its arguments.  Thus a gerku
is a dog, but a malgerku is a cur.  By the same token, something is a
se malpacna if you believe that hoping for it is a contemptible thing.

In addition, "optimistic" and "pessimistic" are incurably ambiguous
in English.  "I'm optimistic about Obama's second term" can mean that
you hope he has one, or that you hope the event of his having one is a
good thing.

-- 
Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the          John Cowan
portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see           cowan@ccil.org
it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical,         http://ccil.org/~cowan
epical or dramatic?  If a man hacking in fury
at a block of wood make there an image of a cow,
is that image a work of art? If not, why not?               --Stephen Dedalus