[lojban] The 16 propositional attitude predicates

["Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>]

There are 16 Lojban gismu that have a proposition (du'u) place,
a place for an object which the proposition is about, and a place
(or two places in the cases of {tugni} and {ctuca}) for a person
with a given attitude towards that proposition. The 16 predicates
are:

djuno x1 knows fact(s) x2 (du'u) about subject x3 by epistemology x4
facki x1 discovers/finds out x2 (du'u) about subject/object x3
jimpe x1 understands/comprehends fact/truth x2 (du'u) about subject x3
morji x1 remembers/recalls/recollects x2 (du'u) about subject x3
tugni x1 agrees with person x2 that x3 (du'u) is true about matter x4
cilre x1 learns x2 (du'u) about subject x3 from source x4 by method x5
ctuca x1 teaches audience x2 ideas x3 (du'u) about x4 by method x5
krici x1 believes x2 (du'u) is true/assumed about subject x3
smadi x1 guesses/conjectures x2 (du'u) is true about subject x3
sruma x1 assumes/supposes that x2 (du'u) is true about subject x3
jijnu x1 intuits x2 (du'u) about subject x3
jdice x1 decides/makes decision x2 (du'u) about matter x3
jinvi x1 thinks/opines x2 (du'u) is true about x3 on grounds x4
xusra x1 asserts/claims/declares x2 (du'u) is true
senpi x1 doubts/is skeptical/questions that x2 (du'u) is true
birti x1 is certain/sure/positive/convinced that x2 is true

The last three are missing the "about x3" place for some reason,
but I think they do belong to this group. I think this is an
exhaustive list, but I'd be greatful to know if I missed any
other gismu in this class.

Many of these predicates tend to be misused in Lojban, for
example many of us tend to say {mi morji le nu mi klama le zarci}
"I remember my going to the market" when we should say, for
example {mi morji le du'u vo'i fasnu kei le nu mi klama le zarci}
"I remember (that it happened) about my going to the market".
Not to mention things like {mi cilre la lojban}, {mi djuno la
djan}, {mi jimpe le nabmi}, etc.

It is possible to get the meaning we want (or something close
enough) if we use the x3 for the object and fill x2 with "all
the relevant facts":

   mi cilre fi la lojban:
   I learn (all the relevant facts about) Lojban.
   I learn Lojban.

   mi djuno fi la djan
   I know (all the relevant facts about) John.
   I know John.

   mi jimpe fi le nabmi
   I understand (all the relevant facts about) the problem.
   I understand the problem.

So it would seem that having "all the relevant facts" as a sort
default for x2 might be a useful thing. (In the case of {krici}
"all the relevant facts" are "that it exists", so that {mi krici
fi ko'a} would mean that I believe in ko'a, i.e. I believe that
ko'a exists.)

What happens if we put a proposition (du'u) in x3? That is
reasonable too, because propositions are valid topics
for other propositions. So for example:

   mi djuno le du'u jetnu kei le du'u la djan klama le zarci
   I know (that it is true) that John goes to the market.
   I know that John goes to the market.

So, given that we can use x3 for everything, including propositions,
the reasonable thing would seem to be to always use x3, which
we can't go wrong with, and forget about x2. Indeed people already
do that in usage, as half the time we forget to restrict the sense
of many of these words to be purely propositional attitudes,
except that we don't mark it as x3. That means that in practice
we are simplifying the place structure to "x1 remembers fact
/situation/object x2", "x1 understands fact/situation/object x2",
"x1 discovers fact/situation/object x2", etc. Should we actively
promote this "mistake" of always ignoring x2? The advantages are
clear: we get broader and much more useful predicates. Are there
disadvantages?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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