From araizen@newmail.net Fri Feb 08 04:46:19 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: araizen@newmail.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 8 Feb 2002 12:46:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 60568 invoked from network); 8 Feb 2002 12:46:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m4.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Feb 2002 12:46:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.barak.net.il) (212.150.150.43) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Feb 2002 12:46:17 -0000 Received: from out.newmail.net (54.150.212.in-addr.arpa [212.150.54.158] (may be forged)) by mail.barak.net.il (8.11.1/8.9.1) with SMTP id g18CnCr19506 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2002 14:49:12 +0200 (IST) Received: from default ([62.0.180.82]) by out.newmail.net ; Fri, 08 Feb 2002 03:07:07 +0200 Message-ID: <00b501c1b03c$ea72c140$52b4003e@default> To: "lojban" References: Subject: Re: UI for 'possible' (was: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 03:06:31 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 From: "Adam Raizen" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=3063669 X-Yahoo-Profile: araizen X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 13198 la .and. cusku di'e > Likewise, I feel strongly that {da'i} ought not alter truth conditions; > it should indicate that the speaker is not claiming the proposition > within its scope to be true. When 'da'i's scope is the main bridi, then it would be altering truth conditions, since the normal assuption is that the main bridi is true. I stuck to 'da'i' and 'po'o' because they are 'pure' UI, but there's also the obvious case of 'je'unai', which clearly doesn't claim the bridi it is attached to and is every bit as metalinguistic as 'li'a', 'sa'e', etc. > > Otherwise, a large number of > > pontential sei-phrases become useless. 'sei cumki' would be useless, > > since the sentence claims the main bridi, and anything true is also > > possible. > > Not every unmarked sentence is a claim. Without overt indicators, > the illocutionary force has to be glorked from context, though of > course without strong contextual evidence to the contrary, we do > assume that an unmarked sentence is a claim. If not every unmarked sentence has to be a claim, then certainly some marked sentences may not be claims, and what is an overt indicator if not 'sei'? Thus, according to what you've thus said, even if sei is purely 'metalinguistic' and merely makes comments about the discourse without affecting truth value, 'sei cumki mi klama' still works as it should. > Adverbs are of course a heterogeneous class, both syntactically > and semantically. But taking your 'average' adverb, logically > it would normally correspond to a predicate, predicated of > a proposition (or state-of-affairs). But if you want to keep > adverby sort of syntax, then use a BAI, either the BAI for > manner, or else fi'o. Placing the modal before the selbri allows > for the omission of the sumti. Of course, and some types are easy to do in lojban, but I was thinking of 'possibly'-type of adverbs. BAI (and sumti-tags in general) work for some adverbs, but for others they don't work so well. For example, 'fi'o cumki ku mi klama' 'with possible event (whatever) I come'. A BAI-tag is supposed to add an additional place, and there is no other relevant place here; it is just a comment on the main bridi. mu'o mi'e .adam.