From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sat Apr 09 09:41:44 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:41:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DKJ1b-0007Xx-FG for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:41:35 -0700 Received: from web81308.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.83]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.44) id 1DKJ1Y-0007XY-JJ for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:41:35 -0700 Message-ID: <20050409164101.68204.qmail@web81308.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [65.69.48.37] by web81308.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 09 Apr 2005 09:41:01 PDT Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2005 09:41:01 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: Denoting counterfactual sentences in Lojban? To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: 6667 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 9806 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- Jorge Llambías wrote: > On Apr 8, 2005 11:41 PM, John E Clifford > wrote: > > --- Jorge Llambías > wrote: > > > > > You can also use {ju'a nai} to mark > something > > > as a non-assertion: > > > > I'm not sure what this would mean:"I don't > state" > > as an evidential. So little evidence that I > > don't really want to put it forth at all? But > it > > still seems to be an assertion. > > I see two issues here. > > 1) Is {ju'a} an evidential {sei lo na se cusku > cu jicmu} "I'm not telling > what the evidence for what I'm saying is", as > the CLL description > suggests, or is it an illocutionary force > indicator {sei mi xusra} "I assert", > as the keyword definition suggests? > > 2) Is it possible to utter a non-subordinate > bridi and not assert it? > > Issue (1) is one of definition: What is more > useful? What was intended > by the FFs? What do people really use it for? > CLL clearly classifies it as > an evidential. To me it makes more sense to > contrast "I state" with "I ask" > and "I command" than with sources of evidence, > and I think that even > though assertion is the default illocutionary > force of an otherwise > unmarked utterance it is still useful to have > an explicit indicator. Well, quite a bit rides on the definition here. As an evidential, {ju'a} seems to say that my saying it is all the evidence there is (or need?). Even for World's Greatest Expert this would be a pretty poor evidential. But as an illocutionary marker it seems simply redundant; the corresponding English is used only with contrastive "I" to separate my claim from contrary ones by others, No, not quite: we have just the cases hinted at: introducing my position on a set topic: "Resolved that Grice is a crock. I say not only that but the pot is cracked" (for illustrative purposes only). Note that the topic is hear presnted as a resolution so illocutionarily the apparent form is that of an announcement of a decision of some sort. But it does come across as an assertion which one side holds to be true and the other false and the middle that it needs qualifications. So it comes as a proposal (for which we don't really have a marker -- the various "suggestion"s seem more about doing than holding, though {stidi} -- and hence {ti'i}and its derivatives? -- does allow ideas and so presumably propositions. > Issue (2) as posited has an obvious answer: > questions and commands > can be non-assertive main bridi utterances. But > is it possible for a main > bridi to have no illocutionary force at all? > That's more tricky, especially > because we don't really have a complete > catalogue of possible illocutionary > forces. But in principle I don't see any > impediment in offering a sentence > marked explicitly as a non-assertion, possibly > to set a topic for example. > Maybe that is some other kind of illocutionary > force. > So, we do seem to have something like this, variously disguised in English (and most familiar languages). The "I say" introducing my response to the topic seems to be more or less an explicit separation from what went before. So marking what went before as {ju'anai} seems to fit a common pattern for sticking on {nai} (cf. {da'i nai} for ending the hypothetical environement). I withdraw my objection, moving to inviting more discussion on what to do about all this.