| In a message dated 7/6/2001 1:16:32 AM Central Daylight Time,
jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: Consider these three sentences: Nice! But you have about exhausted the forms: there remain only fragments and ejaculations and observatives that I can think of -- and even imperatives are not a different *form*; the role is determined by the occurrence of {ko}. What you have is a nice illustration of an important fact -- that uses are hierarchial: question are a type of directive langauge (under each question in at least one type of grammar is a request, which can be surfaced as in moving from 1 to 2. And every request is a type of performative (indeed every sentence uttered has an underlying performative in these grammars). In this case, we would expect 4) {mi minde do lenu jungau mi le du'u makau ti gasnu} as raising the performative to the surface. Notice, by the way, that 1, 2, and 4 can only be answered with something in {ai}, {a'i} or {ie} (as I understand it anyhow) while 3 can (at the risk of being labelled obtuse) be answered {ia}. That is, it can be a simple assertion if function as well as form. <Question forms in Lojban are probably the easiest to identify, they are all and only those forms that contain one of the (unkaued) question words: ma, mo, xu, xo, pei, ji, etc. They are ususally used to ask questions, but nobody can stop you from using them for other functions: "would you be kind enough to pass me the salt?" is a question in form but not in function, and it would be natural enough to replicate in Lojban. And of course nobody can stop you from using other forms for the function normally fullfilled by questions, as in (2) and (3) above.> Yes we cannot stop circumlocutions of that sort --though I think some langauges use them less than others: English less than Spanish, for example, if the stuff we read in second year a half-century ago are anything to go on. And Lojban, which has quite an array of devices for being polite and the like -- the usual reasons given for periphrasis, might not need them at all, barring our carry-over habits. Then again, it may use them even more, in which case we have to extend our definitions of what form marks what function somewhat. My problem is more to be sure we have some device for every function, not that we insist that that device be the only one. <Directive forms are of course all those containing {ko}, but also, I would say, those marked with e'o, e'u, ei, e'a, also e'e in my use, and perhaps e'i. I am also tempted to make this a larger category (volitive?) encompassing a'o, au, ai, a'i (understood as "trying"). These are all indicators of a situation that may or may not realize, and with which the speaker is concerned. The listener is often a priviledged actor in the case of the e-series, thus the special {ko} form.> The eV forms come as close to a letter-to-function relation as any. I would divide them into directions and permissions and responses (some of which are in iV or aV). Your use of {e'e} is interesting, though more a response or a permission than a direction -- but they are all in the area of abetting someone else's actions. <It is clear that {da'i} corresponds to the speculative form, but I'm not quite sure yet how to handle what follows from the speculation (English "would"). For example: Suppose you were here. I am here. We would both be here! The first sentence is marked with {da'i}, the second is a normal assertion. How do we mark the third? It is not another {da'i}, for it is not a new assumption, but it shouldn't either be confused with a normal assertion. Some combination of {da'i} with something else? Pity {da'ibi'unai} is so long. Perhaps {da'ibi'u} for "were" and plain {da'i} for "would"?> I take {da'i} as an offset as in proof structures (a world shift if you like that language) and everything after it to a {da'inai} is then "under the hypothesis." One of the features of speculation is that it can carry over anything from the base world (sorry, it just is so convenient to tlk this way -- as long as you don't get serious about it) that is not "obviously altered by the hypothesis" (deliberately vague, as we would see in practice). So, shifting where you are does not obviously require a shift in where I am and thus that can be imported (strictly, in world talk, recognized as true also in the shifted world): it might be either "I am here" or "I would still be here." That is just my usage, however, and not carved even in water at this point. There is something to be said for {da'ibi'u} as well, but, since it is longer, I would wait to see whether it is needed. |