From anthony@electriceyeball.com Fri Jun 15 10:10:03 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: aroach@stoic.electriceyeball.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 15 Jun 2001 17:10:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 18111 invoked from network); 15 Jun 2001 17:10:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 15 Jun 2001 17:10:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO femail19.sdc1.sfba.home.com) (24.0.95.128) by mta3 with SMTP; 15 Jun 2001 17:10:02 -0000 Received: from stoic.electriceyeball.com ([24.13.143.137]) by femail19.sdc1.sfba.home.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.20 201-229-121-120-20010223) with ESMTP id <20010615171001.QSOH4833.femail19.sdc1.sfba.home.com@stoic.electriceyeball.com> for ; Fri, 15 Jun 2001 10:10:01 -0700 Received: by stoic.electriceyeball.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 2433E8F9C8; Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:12:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 12:12:16 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Are attitudinals assertions? (was: Attitudinals again (was: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Message-ID: <20010615121216.A2165@stoic.electriceyeball.com> Mail-Followup-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from jjllambias@hotmail.com on Fri, Jun 15, 2001 at 03:37:16PM +0000 Sender: aroach@stoic.electriceyeball.com From: Anthony Roach X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 8036 On Fri, Jun 15, 2001 at 03:37:16PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote: > > la xod cusku di'e > > > > Is a smile an assertion to you? > > > >Isn't it? If not, why not? > > No, because there is no proposition involved. > > >How are you defining "assertion"? > > The act of indicating that a given proposition is true. > How do you define it? > > mu'o mi'e xorxes I'm new to this list, I don't know much Lojban, and I've never been formally introduced to you all (Hi!), but I think I have idea on how to clarify this for xod and others: This is an assertion: "I am smiling". This is not an assertion: ":-)" The former is asserting something about myself, and the later is just me smiling. If you say that the latter is asserting "I am smiling", then you must concede that the former is asserting "I am asserting that I am smiling", which it clearly isn't. I could say "I am asserting that I am smiling", and it would be true, but that is not what the statment "I am smiling" is asserting. "I am smiling." and ":-)" are on two different levels. The former is an assertion that involves the later (i.e. my smile). The same discussion can be applied to "mi gleki" and ".ui". The former asserts that I am happy, and the later conveyes my happiness to you in a textual form. (I don't know enough Lojban to be sure, but I think that "mi gleki" <=> "I am happy", right?) This is all pretty subtle, and in actual practice I doubt it makes much different, but there are situations where it does make a difference. Here is an example: Me: I am smiling because I won the lottery today. You: You're lying! (You aren't smiling.) Me: :-) I won the lottery today. You: You're lying! (You didn't win the lottery today.) The statements in parenthesis are what most people would think you are are claiming that I am lying about. Most people would not claim that in the later you are saying that I am not really smiling. Anyway, I think it's great that Lojban has attitudinals so we don't have to use things like ":-)" and ">:-|" to convey emotions in written or spoken communication, and if we turn the attitudinals into assertions, then what's the point of even having them? Attitudinals are a nice spice :-P to liven up a boring dry assertions :-D. -Anthony P.S. I appologize for not using more Lojban in this message. I've only been learning Lojban for a couple days now. -- homepage: http:://www.electriceyeball.com email: aroach@electriceyeball.com PGP: http://www.electriceyeball.com/aroach.asc