Re: [bpfk] The Case for UI.

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 08:39:39PM -0700, Lindar wrote:
> According to CLL Chapter 13 Section 3 examples 3.8 through 3.12
> (and pretty much the whole chapter) a large number of UI1 do not
> actually work as emotional indicators, but as evidentials like in
> UI2. Rather than {.oi} expressing annoyance at a particular thing,
> it states that it works more like "Complaint: ", which to me seems
> more like something out of UI2. 

As far as I know, {.oi} is a pure emotion indicator; where do you
see otherwise?

> Similarly, {.ai} seems to be "Intent: " rather than expressing a
> feeling of intent, 

Please avoid {.ai} for this discussion; it is already controversial.

> {.e'u} is "Suggestion: " instead of feeling suggestive, and {.e'o}
> is "Request: " instead of a feeling of petition.

Those are irrealis as far as I know, yes.

> There is a rather big inconsistency in this regard as some UI1

UI1 vs. UI2 is simply how people decided to group them at some time
in the past; it has no formal impact on the language at all, they
are all just UI.

> function this way, whereas some others such as {.ui}, {.iu}, and
> {.io} actually express pure emotion. As I understand it, this has
> been a very long debate, especially with regard to {.ai} (hence
> the alternate title). 

The issue with {.ai} is totally seperate.

> I hope to bring this to an end.

That's unlikely.

> We -cannot- meet half way on this, 

Then you might as well walk away now; I have little or no interest
in discussion with someone who absolutely will not compromise.

> I propose to change this to one of two things:
> 
> Option 1: Make all UI1 

Again: "UI1" has little or no meaning.  Grammatically, there is just
"UI".  Some of them have irrealis meanings, some of them are pure
emotional expression, some of them convert between the two sort of
(da'i), and some of them are just bizarre (kau).

> function the same by making them all evidential- like such that
> they work like {.e'u} as described in CLL; create a new set of
> cmavo based on UI1 with similar meanings, but indicating pure
> emotion. 

You're talking about destroying the meaning of basically *every*
piece of Lojban ever.

No.

> oi - "Complaint: "
> ui - "Expression of Joy: "

Picking on the two that are most well understood: what is it you're
intending these to mean, exactly?  Surely you do not intend irrealis
"Complaint:"?  If not, what is the change?  These look like pure
emotional expression, which are what we have now.  Seriously: I have
no idea how this is different than what we have now for those two
words.

> Option 2: Make all UI1 express only emotion. Take the specific UI
> that do change the meaning of the bridi and move them to a new
> space in UI2 with cmavo that correspond to their counterparts (via
> previously mentioned method) as perhaps not all UI1 need an
> irrealis counterpart as in option 1.

Again: this breaks a *staggering* amount of extant Lojban.  Why?
You've given no reason why this is so amazingly important.  So
different words have different semantics; who cares?

Having said that, I'd support this for the sake of consistency if I
thought there was any chance at all of it being approved by either
the BPFK as a whole or the LLG membership.  I don't think there is.

> a'o - ia'o (hopefully vs. I hope that...)

There's no need to have a new set of words; just an irrealis marker,
i.e. {da'i}.

-Robin

-- 
http://singinst.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei".   My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/

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