Re: ga'i (was: ciska bai tu'a zo bai)

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

I asked whether absolute rank indicators (pronouns, e.g.) were really
absolute.

la nitcion. cusku di'e

> This is how Levinson talks about
> them:
>
> "The other main kind of socially deictic information that is often encoded is
> *absolute* rather than relational. There are, for example, forms reserved
> for certain speakers, in which case we make talk (after Fillmore 1975) of
> *authorized speakers*. For example, in Thai the morpheme *khra'b* is a polite
> particle that can only be used by male speakers, the corresponding form
> reserved for female speakers being *kha'*. Similarly, there is a form of the
> first person pronoun specifically reserved for the use of the Japanese
> Emperor.

I had not understood earlier that the so-called "emperor pronoun" was a
1st-person pronoun.

It now seems to be agreed here at Lojban Central that "ga'i" indicates
the speaker's superiority to the sentence referent, as Nick has been saying
all along.  So "do ga'i" means the speaker is superior to the listener, and
"la nitcion. ga'i" means the speaker is superior to Nick.

The only questionable points are "miga'i[nai]" and the above-mentioned
absolute social indicator.  Lojbab now agrees that "miga'i" does not, in
general, mean that the speaker is high-ranking.  However, it is not entirely
self-contradictory.  Where "mi" means simply "I", "miga'i" is rather useless:
"I (who am superior to myself)".  But "mi" can also mean "we", or even refer
to a past or future version of the speaker who might differ in social rank.
In either case, "miga'i[nai]" can be marginally useful.

I believe that the need for an absolute social indicator is achieved by
using "ga'i" by itself.  Without anything to attach to, "ga'i" indicates the
speaker's superiority to Things In General, i.e. his/her social rank.
So there is no "emperor 1st-person pronoun", but an address from the throne
might begin "ga'icai .ni'o" to express the Emperor's extremely high rank
relative to everyone else.

This is not exactly as good as Javanese, which contains an "aristocratic
level" where almost every >word< of the language is replaced by a more
long-winded equivalent, and which requires special education to understand,
but it will have to do for Lojban.

> There are also in many languages forms reserved for *authorised
> recipients*, including restrictions on most titles of address (*Your Honour*,
> *Mr President*, etc.); in Tunica there were pronouns that differed not only
> with sex of referent, but also with the sex of the addressee, so that there
> were, for example, two words for 'they', depending on whether one was speaking
> to a man or a woman."

Attaching "ga'i" to "do" or "ko" or "doi", dragging these into the sentence
if need be, will do this job.

> =I think in the realm of attitudinals proper, this distinction is unreal.
> =You do not >know< that someone else is angry; you infer it from your
> =observation (za'a.o'onaidai) or your intuition (se'o.o'onaidai).
>
> I suspect this will have to be suspended somehow in narrative, given the
> 'omniscient narrator' device --- in the same way as narrative time overrides
> our normal way of using tense. I believe Lojbab already adumbrated this point.

I'm not so sure about this whole business of using attitudinals in narration
in place of modifiers on "cusku".  In English narrative, we say:

1)      "John's finally leaving", George said happily.

and not:

2)      "John's finally leaving", said George (hurrah!)

Example 2 actually does sound like the narrator expressing an opinion, and
more likely an opinion about George's speaking than about John's going.

> => mean... that you're honouring the sentence.
> =Not quite: you are honoring the >referent< of the sentence: as you say,
> =we have >referent< honorifics.  So you are honoring an event.  This probably
> =makes more sense with "ga'i":
> =        le xarju cu citka vauga'i
> =        The pig ate [which is an event beneath my notice].
>
> Wow. I get it now. Please include this in the attitudinals paper!

Done.  Of course "ga'i" at the beginning of the bridi means the same.

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.