Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs2.digex.net with SMTP id AA21365 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Sat, 28 Jan 1995 20:19:01 -0500 Message-Id: <199501290119.AA21365@nfs2.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4471; Sat, 28 Jan 95 20:20:52 EST Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 0270; Sat, 28 Jan 1995 20:20:53 -0500 Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 18:08:38 -0700 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Sat Jan 28 20:19:04 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu And: >I'm rather baffled about what the link between "I define" and creating >a performative can be. Whatever the explanation is, I agree that "hereby" >is used to flag, if not to create, performatives. Well, "I define" isn't quite right but there really is no English equivalent phrase which changes a statement into a performative. I think you're right that "hereby" only flags, not creates, performatives. >Yes, you can claim it is false, and this is exactly the problem. >"Julius Caesar hereby commands/commanded you to go away" is false. If we were to assume that ca'e is NOT "hereby", but truly makes a performative, it'll be tricky to extract a useful meaning from: "ca'e la djuliys siz,r ca minde lenu do to'omo'i klama"; it's a silly sentence, but my guess about the interpretation would be that the speaker is thereby redefining their personal ideolect such that that statement is true, by stretching the meaining of "minde" in some unspecified way. That would be consistent with the example in the grammar, "ca'e le re do cu simxu speni" (I now pronounce the two of you to be married) -- in a sense we're redefining "simxu speni", if the 'definition' of a selbri is the set of sumti which make it true.