From richardt@flash.net Thu Jun 14 18:19:57 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: richardt@flash.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 15 Jun 2001 01:19:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 8215 invoked from network); 15 Jun 2001 01:19:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 15 Jun 2001 01:19:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO pimout4-int.prodigy.net) (207.115.63.103) by mta2 with SMTP; 15 Jun 2001 01:19:54 -0000 Received: from flash.net ([216.51.105.232]) by pimout4-int.prodigy.net (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f5F1JYQ237494 for ; Thu, 14 Jun 2001 21:19:34 -0400 Sender: richardt@pimout4-int.prodigy.net Message-ID: <3B2951FE.FBCCF5AD@flash.net> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 19:08:30 -0500 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.16-22smp i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] If it ain't broke, don't fix it (was an approach to attitudinals) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Richard Todd Jorge Llambias wrote: > >(of course he is actually in > >the process of going and if he is interrupted and does not reach the > >destination then the statement will be seen later as being false). > > If he believes that he is actually going, he shouldn't say that he > hopes that he is actually going. That's very confusing. Only if we refuse to accept some format which lets us know for sure whether the sentence is still asserted or not. On the other hand, if we do make such an adjustment, the worst that can happen is that you _know_ that he's going and you still have trouble figuring out what the exact relationship between the emotion and the assertion is. Add a string of several more attitudinals to the sentence. Confusing, conflicting ones, even (I know I've personally simultaneously hoped for something and dreaded it). Then it's even harder to claim you understand the sentence completely, but you will still know for sure whether the sentence asserts something or not. Since emotions are so personal, you could make a case that it's even likely that the audience doesn't quite get it right (unless it's a cliche'd version of {ui} = 'it makes me happy that' which robs attitudinals of their potential IMO and makes them shorthand for longer sentences). Keep in mind that most of us are not trying to tie down the meaning of the attitudinals (quite the opposite, in fact); we're trying to define their relationship to the rest of the sentence in a way that both opens up possibilities and is more clear. All this arguing is really addicting, I admit, but does anything ever actually get resolved in this forum? Is the procedure basically to type and type until one side's fingers get too weary to continue? And even in that case, does one side 'win'? Richard