[lojban] Re: Duty, promice etc...

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 1/6/07, Cyril Slobin <slobin@ice.ru> wrote:
> I have spent a sleepless night thinking about the subject, and I have
> some new enlightenment now. Let us put "promise" aside, consider
> "request".

Yes, all of these words describing performative utterances would
seem to behave similarly. "Command" would be another one.

> Imagine the following scenario: I, Cyril, send to you,
> Jorge, a letter with request to explain your ideas about {nupre}.

So you would write:

(1) e'o ko ciksi lo sidbo be zo nupre bei do}

A third party would describe that as:

(2) la kir cu cpedu fi la xorxes fe lo nu ciksi lo sidbo be zo nupre bei xy

I would say that utterance (1) is a request, but utterance (2) is not a request.

Similarly:

(3) nu'e do'u mi ba ciksi

(4) ko'a nupre lo nu ko'a ba ciksi

I would say utterance (3) is a promise, but utterance (4) is not a promise.

> But
> you do not receive my letter - it was disappeared into the Great Black
> Hole in the Middle of the Internet. But you, being not aware about my
> request, by your own initiative, write a message explaining your ideas
> about {nupre}. Do you comply with my request? The answer "no" is at
> least defensible. To comply with request, you must not only do the
> action requested, but also do it because of request.

Right.

> Similarly, to
> fulfil the promise is not just do the promised thing, but do it
> because of promise.

I agree. So {zukte lo se nupre} is not ideal for "keep a promise", because
of what you say. The problem is with {zukte}, "Keep" a promise involves
something more than doing whatever was promised. We probably need
some lujvo.

Neither {nupre} nor {cpedu} sem to have a corresponding gismu for
the carrying out of the promise/request, but interesingly {minde} does
have {tinbe}. So what we need is to fill the gaps in:

minde:tinbe
cpedu:?????
nupre:?????

Perhaps {cpemansa} and {nupmansa}?
Then {midmansa}={tinbe}.

> So my current solution is:
>
>    le nu do mu'igi nupre gi zukte vau ko'a cu se bebna
>
> But at this point I remember about the price of infinite precision...
> So for practical needs I just say {tu'a lo se nupre be do cu bebna}.

Or {lo nu do nupmansa cu se bebna}

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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