| In a message dated 6/15/2001 2:29:59 AM Central Daylight Time,
xod@sixgirls.org writes: Give it up. You are wrong. The Book clearly shows that a'u is a Not too bad as a last ditch defense, but it doesn't work. A glance at the cases on that page of the book will show that not all -- and especiallynot {a'u} -- of what are called there "propositional attitude indicators" are non-assertive. Further, of course, you can't be repulsed by what ain't there to be repulsive. <If .ui means "I am happy...", that is a provable logical assertion about the reality of my emotions. There are situations where you will call mea liar if I say .ui. Sales one, blatant denial another, politics a third.> Remember that it is a presupposition of this discussion that English "Iam happy that..." is ambiguous and the ambiguity is exactly the one being glossed over in your remark. Can you demonstrate that the ambiguity -- apparently well-documented -- does not exist? A similar problem arises with "liar," which may be used for any verbal deception, not merely those which involved deliberately uttering a statement known by the utterer to be false with the intention to deceive. <I conclude that you would agree with a tradition or habit of tending to put UI in front of the bridi when pragmatically meaning to discuss a hypothetical, and putting it elsewhere when emoting while issuing an assertion. Such a habit would likely sort things out in my head as I speak!> I would have taken Lojbab's remark to have tended pretty much in the opposite direction, i.e., as putting emotive responses to situations first and reasoned discussion later, but he will speak for himself on this matter. None of this positional convention (other than as reaction to specific aspects of a situation) makes much sense to me yet. (apologies to xod) |