From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Jun 8 21:57:43 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 9 Jun 1993 01:59:28 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5185; Wed, 09 Jun 93 01:58:27 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 0131; Wed, 09 Jun 93 01:59:48 EDT Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 01:57:43 EDT Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: 'Observative' - terminology X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: Obviously the main reason we use the term 'observative' is historical. There may or may not be a linguistic category of expression that the term covers, probably not. In Lojban it is used primarily in contrast to 'imperative' which it successfully displaced as the interpretation of x1-omitted bridi. As to whether 'observatives' exist as some unique class of expressions in Lojban, it is hard to say. In speech I have headless bridi for one of three reasons: - it is an embedded subordinate clause where x1 is to be inferred from context (I am inclined to label something an observative only if it is the main bridi and is headless). - it is a true observative - I am omitting x1 because it is both obvious from context, and more importantly is obvious because the person I am talking to can 'observe' the same realtionship that I can , and can therefore observe the value of x1 - this is what I think is the justified defintion of observative - not just elided x1, but elided and observable x1. Other sentences may hage the form of an observative, stylistically, but are not really observatives - it is one of a few sentences where I have picked up net.lojban.usage, though I think it malglico. The most obvious of these is "cumki fa ..." for "it is possible that ...". I'm not sure why people including myself seem to fe feel comfortable with such reversal, especiallly since we do it only with certain words that do so in English - in general I feel very UN-comfortable when using a form that is recognizably patterned after an Englishj usage, but where I can't say why I am doing it in a non-typical Lojban manner. It is perhaps possible that what we want is to make the Lojban word "selcumki" simply so we can comfortably use the Engl;ish usage as an observative, even though selcumki may not have a legit English translation. Thus I do not claim that ALL expressions without an x1 are observatives, nor all expressions with x1 moved away from the head position. But that is the NORMAL stylistic interpreatation of a headless main bridi. The 'reason' it is significant enough to give it a separate name is that one of the few recognized principles of Lojban sylistics ius that the thing at the beginning of the sentences gets an inherent emphasis, and by eliminating x1 (as opposed to other places) yoyu are 1) emphasizing the selbri itself which is now located at the head - i.e. focussing on the relationship rather than on one of the places thereof (which in itself seems like a particularly Lojbanic thing to do), and 2) focussing attention on the fact that you HAVE omitted x1 (somethintg a bit harder to focus on for the non-x1 places), thereby suggesting that there is a REASON. The reason thatmay be most common in in-person comm8unication is that the listener can observe x1 for him/her-self, hence the continued use of the term observative. lojbab