On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 11:13 PM, John E Cliffor= d <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:

No, this misunderstands a basic distincti= on in Lojban between assertions and the rest and is just wrong for the func= tion of words like {ai} and=A0 {ui}.=A0 There is a difference between being= disingenuous and lying and=A0 that appears in the difference between sayin= g {ui} and {mi gleki} when I am not happy: the first may be misleading but = is not false (since not an assertion), the second is an assertion and is fa= lse.=A0 Mixing the two up, as people have been doing for 55 years in Logjam= , is a basic logical mistake and the source of a large number of stupid arg= uments on the relevant lists (this may be one of them).=A0 The source is, of course, the= English habit of not distinguishing the two verbally, one among many of th= e reasons for designing Logjam.=A0 I am unclear what a truth function that = takes a person as an argument might be; typically they take a sentence in a= particular frame, which does indeed contain the speaker as a relevant fact= or (the referent of "I", for example), but not a direct argument.= =A0 to be sure, the adequacy condition on a truth function applied to "= ;I am happy" requires that the referent of "I", the speaker,= be in the class of happy persons, but that is a another matter.=A0 There i= s no truth function that takes {ui} as an argument, whether or not there is= some function that takes the speaker as an argument.

{ai} is a harder case, because sometimes we rely peoples expressed inte= ntions (not, it seems, on the intention to go, though one can build cases t= hat are as significant as the intetion to give a million).=A0 Not fulfilling those expectations can caus= e very bad feeling, even, in certain cases, law suits or the like, or viole= nce.=A0 But that does not mean that the expression of the intention was a l= ie, even if it was misleading.=A0 It may not even be disingenuous, as xorxe= s points out, being what the speaker intended at the time, before he change= d his mind -- or discovered that his fortune had disappeared or ...=A0=A0 P= romising to give someone the moon may be over the top or metaphorical, but = it isn't false (nor true neither), at most it is insincere and unfulfil= lable (as of now, at least -- there is a treaty on that isn't there?)= =A0 And, there are more ways to deceive than by lying.

If I am free and officially sanctioned to say "ui" dising= enuously i.e. without really being happy, or I can say "ai" witho= ut even the slightest conscious real intention (at the time, perhaps speaki= ng a complete lie) of follow-through, then I fear that "ui" and &= quot;ai" have no real meaning.=A0 Is this what is wanted?=A0 Consider = what politicians would do with these conventions.=A0 Consider what they alr= eady do speaking English.

I think the real question I have here regards _meaning_.=A0=A0 You make= what I feel is an arbitrary semantic distinction between an assertion and = an attitudinal "mode", but I feel without assertion there is no m= eaning.=A0=A0 If attitudinals don't assert at least a vague albeit real= feeling felt by the speaker, what do attitudinals really do?=A0 Earlier, t= he idea of performatives was raised.=A0 The idea of performatives makes tot= al sense when it comes to a very few constructions, namely the interrogativ= e and imperative moods.=A0 "I ask a question, X" and "I requ= est/command Y" don't have truth values; they just mean "pleas= e answer the question" or "do what I request".=A0 But why in= a logical language, a predicate-based language, should the semantics of th= is small set of illocutionary constructions be extended to the inner states= of the speaker?=A0 Why _doesn't_ the speaker saying "ui" sim= ply imply that the speaker is really gleki, as a person would intuitively s= uspect?=A0 What does it really mean otherwise?=A0 What do we gain from that= dubious interpretation?

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