Re: [lojban] Re: Denoting counterfactual sentences in Lojban?

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Apr 8, 2005 11:41 PM, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote: 
> --- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > You can also use {ju'a nai} to mark something
> > as a non-assertion:
> 
> I'm not sure what this would mean:"I don't state"
> as an evidential.  So little evidence that I
> don't really want to put it forth at all? But it
> still seems to be an assertion.

I see two issues here. 

1) Is {ju'a} an evidential {sei lo na se cusku cu jicmu} "I'm not telling
what the evidence for what I'm saying is", as the CLL description 
suggests, or is it an illocutionary force indicator {sei mi xusra} "I assert", 
as the keyword definition suggests?

2) Is it possible to utter a non-subordinate bridi and not assert it?

Issue (1) is one of definition: What is more useful? What was intended
by the FFs? What do people really use it for? CLL clearly classifies it as 
an evidential. To me it makes more sense to contrast "I state" with "I ask" 
and "I command" than with sources of evidence, and I think that even 
though assertion is the default illocutionary force of an otherwise 
unmarked utterance it is still useful to have an explicit indicator. 

Issue (2) as posited has an obvious answer: questions and commands
can be non-assertive main bridi utterances. But is it possible for a main 
bridi to have no illocutionary force at all? That's more tricky, especially 
because we don't really have a complete catalogue of possible illocutionary 
forces. But in principle I don't see any impediment in offering a sentence 
marked explicitly as a non-assertion, possibly to set a topic for example.
Maybe that is some other kind of illocutionary force.

mu'o mi'e xorxes