From kencomer@kencomer.com Wed Dec 01 15:44:40 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:45:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from pop-a065c32.pas.sa.earthlink.net ([207.217.121.247]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CZe9I-0005er-55 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:44:40 -0800 Received: from user-11201or.dsl.mindspring.com ([66.32.7.27]) by pop-a065c32.pas.sa.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1CZe9G-0005vb-00 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Wed, 01 Dec 2004 15:44:38 -0800 User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 17:40:34 -0600 Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: lo nanmu poi na va From: Ken Comer To: Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20041201210457.48096.qmail@web41906.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-archive-position: 911 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: kencomer@kencomer.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners on 12/1/04 3:04 PM, Llambías Jorge wrote thusly: >> But if what you've said >> is correct, "a'o" can actually subsitute for the content word "pacna," which >> seems like a very bad idea. > > It doesn't quite substitute. With {a'o} you express your hope. > With {pacna} you assert that you hope for something. If that isn't clear, consider these two statements in English. I wish he would leave. He's leaving. In both cases, the intonation used to vocalize them could dramatically change the message each contains. How about, He's leaving? He's leaving! He's leaving?! (usually considered bad grammar) Those might be used to represent someone saying "He does leave" in an a'o manner of speaking. Picture two burglars hiding in a closet and the little one says sotto voce "I gotta pee NOW." The big one, who is watching through the crack of the slightly opened door, sees the victim look at the entryway while patting the pockets of his overcoat. If the victim were to then snap his fingers and walk out of sight toward the entryway, the second one might say (sotto voce with hope) "He's leaving..." If not, he might say (sotto voce with hope) "You can hold it." In English, both of those could be better represented in written form (in my opinion) as a rhetorical question (e.g., "He's leaving?"). As a learning exercise, I went through the entire list of attitudinals and tried to say "John's here" with each one. There were a couple that were hard, but mostly it worked.