Message-Id: <199406271316.AA10784@nfs1.digex.net> Reply-To: C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk Date: Mon Jun 27 09:16:46 1994 Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Problem with cnima'o scales To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Jun 27 09:16:46 1994 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU 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