Re: [lojban] Re: other-centric UI

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

Hopefully, journalists don't write fiction, which was the subject at the time. 
 They are more likely to use evidentials than counterfactuals.

But now, back to 101.  
As Mad Ludwig used to say, there are a number of language games, only a very few 
of which are about stating facts. Y'all seem to be trying to reduce a large 
number of other games to these few.  Lojban (thx Loglan) makes quite explicit 
devices for playing at a number of others.  Some of these are reasonably 
familiar (or, at least, parts of them are): There is the impelling -others game 
of imperatives and hortatives (Go!, Let's go).  There is the moral 
world-changing game of promises and vows.  There is the rather related game of 
expressing ones intentions (not quite a vow or promise, but similar enough to be 
dealt with in a similar way).  There is the meaning-world creation of 
counterfactuals, which is very different from any of these, since it takes one 
out of the present context and puts one in another altogether -- but not in a 
story-telling sort of way.  And there are many more.
To say that 'ai mi bedgo' (Panlan, a literary shadow of early Loglan) means "It 
is my intention to go to bed", which might be either true or false, depending on 
my state of mind, is just to think the speaker is playing chess when he is 
really playing Bridge.  "I'm gonta bed" is better; it is more clearly merely an 
expression of intention.  The response "Oh no you aren't " is not a declaration 
that some claim the sentence made (it didn't make one) is false but either 
introduces a (presumed dominant) intension: "You're gonna finish washing the 
dishes" or a question of sincerity ("I know you are really planning on sneaking 
off to snog with your boyfriend").  
You get some fun when you try to report these utterances with other than direct 
quotes:  "She said that she was going to bed" probably works in English because 
of the unlikelihood of this being a prediction, but doing the same in Lojban 
might raise problems.  I admit I no longer remember what to do in these cases 
nor whether the issue was ever raised or answered.  Have fun!


----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, September 13, 2010 8:35:19 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: other-centric UI

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 11:44 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>  So, of course, you don't use counterfactual flags
> throughout a story, no matter how different its context is from the here and
> now.

Unless you are a journalist and you don't want to get sued.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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