On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Bob LeCheva= lier, President and Founder - LLG <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:=

".ai mi dunda la lunra do" is simply (literally) false
when uttered by any non-delusional interlocutor.

iff it is false when the ".ai" is omitted, then it is false with = the "ai" included.

But the emotional expression of ".ai" could still be quite honest= , even if it would be delusional to think the underlying proposition to be = true.

It's not quite that simple as Xorxes has= pointed out.=A0 Some attitudinals definitely do affect the truth condition= s of the bridi they're applied to, namely the ones that shift the bridi= into what in natlangs would be called an irrealis mood.=A0 Perhaps "a= 'o" is the archetypical example.
=A0

Emotions are NOT "logical", nor truth-functional. =A0Most people = probably prefer it that way, even if it makes them sometimes seem a bit del= usional. =A0So long as we can clearly distinguish between the claim and the= emotional expression, this causes no problem in communication.

When you start trying to make attitudinals truth-functional, you kill the w= hole point in having them in the language, which is to allow expression of = emotions without having to worry about "truthiness". Assigning tr= uth to attitudinals INVITES people to lie using them, whereas the expressio= ns of attitude in natural language generally are not subject to such analys= is.

The example I like to use for this are most uses of obscenities in English.= =A0When my dad talked about the "f***ing door being left open" h= e was not attributing reproductive activity on the part of an inanimate obj= ect, and indeed there was no truth functionality to that adjective - it was= expressing an attitude towards the state being described. =A0We might argu= e about what attitude he was expressing, (and the point of Lojban attitudin= als is to enable one to be clear in expressing one's attitudes if one w= ishes), but one would not legitimately be able to say that my dad was lying= either about the door or about his emotions in making that expression.

I hear what you= 're saying throughout this missive and I think I understand your reason= ing (You don't want attitudinals to unnecessarily complicate the semant= ics, I dare presume), but what concerns me even in English is if someone ta= lks about the about the "f***ing door being left open" when he= 9;s secretly delighted that the door was left open.=A0 An implied inner sta= te of the speaker's mind is being messaged through language, interjecti= ons, and even nonverbal cues, and the accuracy of those messages could _hyp= othetically at least_ be mapped to truth values based on whether those mes= sages are accurate ones, or whether they're what you'd call disinge= nuous or false or whatever.=A0 I agree with you that none of that affects t= he truth conditions of "someone left the door open" spoken in any= language and in any register. But times may come when it is desirable to b= e able to talk metalinguistically about disingenuous play-acting, especiall= y given the enormous toolbox that Lojban attitudinals comprise.=A0

Best,
-Mike

=A0