Message-Id: <199601042007.PAA23335@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 4 Jan 1996 19:12:57 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      meaning of UI (was: 'Already')
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
Content-Length: 1361

John:
> > (b) UIs are the right solution iff they don't affect the truth
> > conditions of the bridi
> It is false that UI's necessarily leave the truth conditions of a
> bridi to which they are attached unchanged:
>        .ai mi muvdu la terdi
> may be true, whereas
>        mi muvdu la terdi
> is surely false.  The attitudinal chapter gives some indications,
> but not a complete theory, of which UIs affect truth value and which
> do not.

Truish, but my point (b) is still good(ish). Some UI are purely
expressive, while others are (quasi)propositional in nature (i.e.
things predicated of {dei}). Of the latter type, some or all
affect the truth conditions of the main bridi of the utterance.
But they don't affect the truth conditions of subordinate bridi.
For example, {koa krici kuau ai mi muvdu la terdi} means either
(i) that I intend that koa believe that I move the earth [BTW, shdn't
it be {muvgau}?] or [not sure whether that's x-or or inc-or] (ii) both
that koa believes that I move the earth, and that I intend that I move
the earth. But it definitely does not mean koa believes that I intend
to move the earth. So I would contend that UI can affect the truth
conditions of utterances but not of all bridi. And, since "already"
is something you'd want to say in subordinate as well as main bridi,
UI is the wrong selmao for it.

coo, mie And