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Re: [lojban] Re: question about emphasis or something like it



Assuming that his surprise is a piece of information being conveyed, rather than that he is simply expressing his surprise, the 'ue' form is inappropriate, since it is merely an _expression_, not a claim.  The English is, alas, ambiguous in just this way.


From: Sam Chapin <not.here.now@gmail.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Sent: Thu, January 21, 2010 3:49:35 PM
Subject: [lojban] Re: question about emphasis or something like it

I (a beginner) would express this with e.g. {do cusku lu ta li'u .ue} versus {do cusku .ue lu ta li'u}, but (assuming it works at all) that doesn't generalize to surprise on the part of a person other than the speaker.

From: Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:30:03 -0500
To: <lojban-list@lojban.org>
Subject: [lojban] question about emphasis or something like it

How would lojban differentiate between "I'm surprised that you said 'that'" (emphasis on 'that' as opposed to saying 'this') vs "I'm surprised that you said 'that'" (emphasis on 'said' as opposed to 'wrote' or 'thought')?

My first thought was {ba'e} but my understanding of {ba'e} is that it's just there for emphasis and carries no additional semantic meaning (similar to how {lo nanmu cu klama lo zarci} is semantically identical to {lo zarci cu se klama lo nanmu}).  And as I understand it the two sentences in English mean entirely different things.  They are not only different in their emphasis.

I'm not sure how clearly this question is coming through.  It could probably have stood to percolate in my head a while more but I don't want to forget it (again).

mi'e pafcribe