From @gate.demon.co.uk,@uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Thu Jun 08 21:49:07 1995 Received: from punt.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3303 ; Thu, 08 Jun 95 21:49:04 BST Received: from punt.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Thu, 08 Jun 95 09:20:28 GMT Received: from gate.demon.co.uk by punt.demon.co.uk id aa04106; 8 Jun 95 10:19 +0100 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by gate.demon.co.uk id aa17662; 8 Jun 95 2:45 GMT-60:00 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5592; Wed, 07 Jun 95 21:43:43 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4097; Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:27:40 -0400 Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 16:54:47 EDT Reply-To: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@phyast.pitt.edu Subject: Re: imperative mood X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506080245.aa17662@gate.demon.co.uk> Status: R > >> Um. Well, Jorge is of the opinion that {e'u do} is exactly equivalent > >> to {ko}. > > > >I wouldn't say exactly equivalent, but they both would be in the > >imperative mood. {e'u do} is more precise, because it says what type of > >imperative it is: a suggestion. Other possibilities would be {e'o do} > >for a request, {ei do} for a command. > > I don't think the "do" version is necessarily imperative. My kid left > his wagon on the driveway last night, although he said he brought it in. > If I had checked, I might have said ".e'u do na nenri cpacu le [wagon]" > which is NOT a suggestion that he not bring it in. You mean that {e'u} has both uses of the English expression? I thought it meant "I suggest/propose", and not "I suggest/insinuate". I don't see why it should mean both just because the same word can be used in English for both senses. > For petition (.e'o), I might say the Lojban for "Please tell me it isn't > true!" which emotively has an "e'o" component on the main bridi and an > ".a'o" component on the subordinate. You don't really want the person > to tell you it isn't true, if it really is - so it is NOT an imperative. Whether you mean what you say or not is not the point. {e'o do cusku le sedu'u na co'e} is a request to tell that it is not so, independently of what you really want to be told. Even in your example "tell me" is in the imperative mood. > Likewise ".ei" can express a perceived obligation without necessarily > commanding it - and stating the obligation is not necessarily the same > as suggesting it. I know it is not the same, they are different instances of the imperative mood. That mood is not only used for commands, so "imperative" may not be the best name for it. > I could tell a long adoption-related story now to > back this up, but I won't. In all cases, though, I think "ko" is a > indication of imperative mood that overrides any implicatures of the > attitudinals. The problem was not with {ko}, but what to use for the imperative case of {mi'o}. I said {e'o mi'o}, {e'u mi'o} etc can do the job, so that no new cmavo is needed for it. Jorge