Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 01:30:20 -0400
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199407230530.AA00220@access1.digex.net>
To: nsn@vis.mu.oz.au
Subject: Re: ciska bai tu'a zo bai
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Sat Jul 23 01:30:24 1994
X-From-Space-Address: lojbab

NS> Ouch; major cultural presumption there. The story isn't that simple.
NS> 
NS> In fact, honorifics in language run along not one, but several axes. (NOT
NS> that I suggest encoding these axes as distinct cmavo in Lojban, but I'd
NS> like to point out that the story is a bit fuller than is being suggested.)

Realized,a nd tro some extent accounted for in the design.

NS> So what of our ga'i? Oh. I've just realised I've raised the wrong point
NS> here; Lojbab and the others are talking about what the deictic centre of
NS> {ga'i} should be --- that is, what is the honorific relative to: does it
NS> mean "I am honourable relative to the referent" or "the referent is
NS> honourable relative to me". Lojbab's answer is consistent with other UI
NS> cmavo; for the alternative, we might allow {do'a} (or whatever the empathy
NS> cmavo is these days) to shift the deictic centre --- and, since the
NS> referents will  often be inanimate, we should take the opportunity to
NS> change its definition to "deictic centre shift". 

You lost me here, since I'm not sure what deictic center means

NS> whereas "deictic centre shift" would mean that .o'onaido'a
NS> would mean "He's angry!", not "Oh, I think he's angry" or "He must be
NS> angry".

Well we certainly wouldn't approve of that %^)
a) By moving it outside self-reference, it passes from experience and 
expression to something more judgemental.  Emapthy is at least a little
suggesting that the expression is experiential. From ,my readings, there are
many languages in which it is grammatically or philosophically impossible
to attribute thoughts/emotions to another, and I wouod rather limit the
phenomena to assertion (i.e. bridi claims)
b) which brings us to the other problem.  This 'center shift' makes the
attitudinals sound too much like bridi claims, albeit highly abbreviated  ones.
We have had too much argument with jimc in the past about this, but one of
the essential natures of attitudinals is that they aren't "true" or "false"
unlike bridi - they do not assertt claims about the real world, and at best
indicate the state of the mental world of the speaker, which is their 
main
prupose for existence.

NS> The other thing
NS> we should beware of is not to conflate addressee and referent honorifics.
NS> What does {le patfu cu klama vauga'inai} mean? Does the father outrank me,
NS> or does the person I'm talking to? What about {le ga'inai patfu cu klama}?
NS> Do we in fact have a way of doing addressee honorifics as distinct from
NS> referent honorifics?

I believe the existing set allows this with no mods.  Use of ga'i/ga'inai
marking a referent is a referent honorific.  On  a sentence, I think it
would naturally be an addressee honorific (but then it can be meaningful
to honor an event, though I am not sure this is the same thing - I can be
argued with on the nature of bridi level honorifics).  Ultimately, addressee
honorific is expressed with doi [addressee] [do'u] ga'i[nai], which matches
in English with the military "Sir" in formal addressing of a superior, or
"Your Highness" in addressing royalty or "You Honor" in addressing a judge,
all of which usages occur in most formal cases where the honored is directly
addressed, often in every single sentence.

What we don't have is the formal/informal axis conveyed in attitudinal form,
though the use of doi itself may be appropriately interpreted in that way
(in which case we have no way of addressee honorific excepot when the addressee
is a referent of the sentence or the usage is formal (or perhaps the sentence
level honorific that is somewhat ambiguous).


I think Nick explained my intent regarding the attachment of attitudinal to
referent more clearly than I did.  "Comparison to self" is a mis-statement.
"ga'i" attributes relative honor tot he referent while not necessarily
denying the self. miga'i is pomposity.  The comparison to self is probably
the default when no context indicates otherwise though, but I can see
the conspiratorial "miga'i je doga'i cu zukte" which kidof puts speaker
and addressee together somewhat above the masses.

But of course, this doesn't answer the question of whether ga'i marks the
referent as honored, or the opposite.  I just relaized that I used the
more Japanese-like reversal of my past usage in trying to explain my ideas,
so obviously I can see things both ways.  But then I have seldom used
the honorific except in the example "miga'i na se zdile" which is consistent
with all interpretations, I think.  No one ever considered before what
"do ga'i na se zdile" should mean - honor, or disrespect towards the addressee/
referent

lojbab