On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Michael TurnianskyThat's what the note in the gi'uste definition says, but it's not even
<mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The reason that the x3 exists is simple. It's English-centric. When
> thinking about the concept expressed by the English words "wish", "hope" and
> "expect", (and for that matter "dread") the jbobau team realized that the
> three terms were identical in one respect, that x1 believes that a future
> event x2 will come to pass. They differ in another respect -- the
> subjective reality that x2 will in fact come to pass. So by adding the x3,
> we can distinguish between three English words with one lojbannic word.
a good analysis of the English words, especially of "expect".
First, "hope", "wish" and "expect" don't have to be about future events:
They can easily be about past events:
I hope you had a good time.
I wish you had had a good time.
I expect you had a good time.
Or present events:
I hope she's home.
I wish she were home.
I expect she's home.
What is required of hope and expect is that the one who hopes/expects
does not know for sure whether the event in question has taken place,
is taking place or will take place. For future events this is usually
almost automatically true, so hope and expect are often used with
future events. But they can be used just as easily with present and
past events of unknown certainty.
Wish is different, for "wish" the speaker usually does know that the
event in question has not taken place or is not taking place. That's
why "wish" is hard to use with the future, because the future is
relatively uncertain. Wish requires some certainty that the event does
not take place.
Wish and hope are about events that the wisher/hoper finds desirable:
impossible and possible events respectively. The third possibility,
for events that are certain, the corresponding word is not "expect"
but something like "be glad":
I wish she were home (I know she is not, probability of her being home = 0)
I hope she is home (I don't know whether she is or not, probability
more than 0 and less than 1)
I'm glad she is home (I know she is, probability of her being home = 1)
In all three cases the wisher/hoper/glad one finds her being home
preferrable to her not being home.
"Expect" has nothing to do with preference. I can expect her to be
home but not care one way or the other whether she is or not, and it
is not about high certainty either, I can have a very low expectation
of her being home. "Expect" is just about estimating a probability,
and has very little to do with the possitive attitude towards the
event that "pacna" is about. That's why we needed "kanpe", which is
not about having a positive or negative attitude about the event. (I
have no idea why the silly note from "pacna" was copied into the
definition of "kanpe" though).
So we have the triplet djica/pacna/gleki for positive attitude towards
an impossible/possible/certain event respectively.
And we have senpi/kanpe/birti for the estimation of the
possibility/certainty of an event, regardless of whether we find the
event desirable, undesirable, or whether we have a neutral attitude
towards it. (senpi is not strictly probability zero, but rather a low
probability).