[lojban] Re: Denoting counterfactual sentences in Lojban?

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Apr 8, 2005 11:41 PM, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote: 
> > --- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > You can also use {ju'a nai} to mark
> something
> > > as a non-assertion:
> > 
> > I'm not sure what this would mean:"I don't
> state"
> > as an evidential.  So little evidence that I
> > don't really want to put it forth at all? But
> it
> > still seems to be an assertion.
> 
> I see two issues here. 
> 
> 1) Is {ju'a} an evidential {sei lo na se cusku
> cu jicmu} "I'm not telling
> what the evidence for what I'm saying is", as
> the CLL description 
> suggests, or is it an illocutionary force
> indicator {sei mi xusra} "I assert", 
> as the keyword definition suggests?
> 
> 2) Is it possible to utter a non-subordinate
> bridi and not assert it?
> 
> Issue (1) is one of definition: What is more
> useful? What was intended
> by the FFs? What do people really use it for?
> CLL clearly classifies it as 
> an evidential. To me it makes more sense to
> contrast "I state" with "I ask" 
> and "I command" than with sources of evidence,
> and I think that even 
> though assertion is the default illocutionary
> force of an otherwise 
> unmarked utterance it is still useful to have
> an explicit indicator. 

Well, quite a bit rides on the definition here. 
As an evidential, {ju'a} seems to say that my
saying it is all the evidence there is (or
need?).  Even for World's Greatest Expert this
would be a pretty poor evidential.  But as an
illocutionary marker it seems simply redundant;
the corresponding English is used only with
contrastive "I" to separate my claim from
contrary ones by others, No, not quite: we have
just the cases hinted at: introducing my position
on a set topic: "Resolved that Grice is a crock. 
I say  not only that but the pot is cracked" (for
illustrative purposes only).  Note that the topic
is hear presnted as a resolution so
illocutionarily the apparent form is that of an
announcement of a decision of some sort.  But it
does come across as an assertion which one side
holds to be true and the other false and the
middle that it needs qualifications.  So it comes
as a proposal (for which we don't really have a
marker -- the various "suggestion"s seem more
about doing than holding, though {stidi} -- and
hence {ti'i}and its derivatives? -- does allow
ideas and so presumably propositions.   

> Issue (2) as posited has an obvious answer:
> questions and commands
> can be non-assertive main bridi utterances. But
> is it possible for a main 
> bridi to have no illocutionary force at all?
> That's more tricky, especially 
> because we don't really have a complete
> catalogue of possible illocutionary 
> forces. But in principle I don't see any
> impediment in offering a sentence 
> marked explicitly as a non-assertion, possibly
> to set a topic for example.
> Maybe that is some other kind of illocutionary
> force.
> 

So, we do seem to have something like this,
variously disguised in English (and most familiar
languages).  The "I say" introducing my response
to the topic seems to be more or less an explicit
separation from what went before. So marking what
went before as {ju'anai} seems to fit a common
pattern for sticking on {nai} (cf. {da'i nai} for
ending the hypothetical environement).  

I withdraw my objection, moving to inviting more
discussion on what to do about all this.