Message-Id: <m0qIG1J-00001zC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 27 Jun 1994 13:32:06 BST
Reply-To:     C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      Problem with cnima'o scales
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2030
Lines: 52

I have some concerns about the cnima'o (attitudinals) - specifically about
their scales.

Recently I was trying to translate a quote from Confucius that I saw:
"When I light a candle at midnight, I say to the darkness 'I beg to differ'"

The 'I beg to differ' is presumably nothing like a literal translation
from the Chinese, but something more like "I humbly differ'
(mi fricycu'a ga'inai).

But what I wanted to put in was not so much 'humble' (ga'inai) as
'non-agressive'. But I can't do this, because le'onai has been defined
as 'defensive'. (Nor will 'le'ocu'i' do - I don't mean 'passive', I mean
an active, deliberate 'non-agressive')

And this reminded me that I am unhappy with a lot of the scales which have
been defined for UI. It seems to me that they represent one way of
construing the idea of the UI, but not in many cases the only one, and
often not the one that strikes me as natural.

For example,
o'anai = shame, but it could equally well mean humility (in a slightly
different sense from ga'inai). o'acu'i is glossed as 'modesty/humility',
but to me they do not belong at the same point on the scale.

u'unai = innocence, strikes me as a VERY strange opposite to repentance -
I would expect it to mean 'defiance' or 'truculence'

a'enai = non-alertness = exhaustion
and
e'inai = non-constraint = challenge
also strike me as un-obvious.

On a related topic, I have difficulty with
ba'a = I expect
ba'acu'i = I experience
ba'anai = I remember

Unlike some of the previous examples, I don't find this series difficult to
remember. Perhaps because the use of the scale for time is so bizarre (and
the fact the 'I experience' is a neutral member) I can remember it. I just
find it crazy.

To return to my original translation, my best so far is

fo le ctemidju nu da'i gau mi jelgu'icfa ku
mi cusku fi loi nunmanku fe le du'u mi ga'inai fricycu'a

"by the night-middle event (irrealis) by-agent me burn-illumine-initate,
I express to the-mass dark-event the proposition I humbly differ-choose"

        Colin Fine