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Re: [lojban] If it ain't broke, don't fix it (was an approach to attitudinals)

At 06:35 PM 06/13/2001 -0500, Richard Todd wrote:

Craig wrote:
> When was the last time anyone was misunderstood about it?

Recently, I think (though not specifically about {a'o}).  I don't want
to get into a meta-argument about when this argument really started, so
if you don't agree I'll say in advance that it's fine with me.

I thought this really started when pycn's reading of one of xod's
sentences was the exact opposite of xod's intended meaning.  The essence
of the misunderstanding was whether pycn was correct to assume that
xod's sentence was an assertion.  (I'm not saying that pycn made a
mistake reading the sentence--the fact that both sides had merit, IMO,
is why a convention would be such a good thing)
I agree that this was where the discussion started. But what caused the misunderstanding was in part the fact the xod had used multiple attitudinals in different parts of the sentence. The fact that some were marked with dai does not change the fact that they were all attitudinals, and their interaction was confusing. At least two people apparently DID understand xod the way he intended, and not the way pc interpreted it, and I think pc eventually admitted having missed something, so the pragmatics was probably sufficient to resolve the issue without any conventions. But in any event the conventions being discussed now would not have helped with xod's expression with multiply-interacting attitudinals that seemed to contradict.
While people DID understand xod, he could probably have stated things more clearly so as to not imply assertions or attitudes that were not intended. Indeed, I think in live conversation (where attitudinals are most likely to be used communicatively rather than analytically), I don't think he would have phrased it in the way he did. 

Had the Book (which I don't own yet, so I'm going by others' statements)

been consistent with itself about attitudinals, I doubt the conversation
would have gone so far.
The book doesn't cover all possible situations regarding attitudinals, may not have any situations with multiple attitudinals in different parts of the sentence, and certainly not interactions between dai attitudinals in one place and non-dai attitudinals in another place. 


But since the claim has been made that _no_
usage is completely consistent with the Book, it doesn't seem too
blasphemous to set a standard that is consistent, (mostly) compatible,
and simple.
The book describes pragmatic considerations which are not unambiguous and indeed sometimes conflict. Attitudinals are orthogonal to the rest of the grammar and there will probably and perhaps necessarily be cases that make little sense and others that seem to conflict with the grammar. 



Here is the text of the mail with the misunderstanding I'm referring to:

----------
Well, I did not in fact claim that: I said I would probably have (given
the
choices between "foolish" and "evil" for two events) reversed xod's
choices.
Happily ther were other choices and I made those.  And xod does indeed
*assert* that translating Alice is evil.  xod also *expresses* a number
of
emotional responses to that claim, some of them apparently at variance
with
the claim made  -- though they might be merely shock at finding oneself
making such a claim.  I am still unsure what empathetic opining is --xod
got
so into my head that agreement resulted?  The sentence in question is <
.a'unaicai pe'idai le nu fanva la .alis. cu palci .ianai .u'e > in which
the
only assertion is < le nu fanva la .alis. cu palci >; the rest is
emotive
response.  I suspect xod meant the assertion to be in quotes or some of
the
emotive expressions to be assertions to the effect that xod reesponded
thus
to my assertion that...  But what is written is written, and I refuse to
be
blamed for taking people at their word.
And indeed MERELY if the assertion had been in quotes (or maybe a si'o abstraction would have been even better), I think there would have been no misunderstanding. But pc focused on the bridi first whereas others who understood what was intended focused on the attitudinals and in particular on the dai, and thus understood it as being a "quote" rather than an assertion. 

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org