Re: [lojban] Time for the perenial other-centric-.ui conversation

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

Impeccable as your Lojban is, your descriptions of human behavior leave 
something to be desired, mainly accuracy.  Saying something is meant as humor 
but I am not amused is one of the most common moves in watching and critiquing 
tv shows, for one example, and being ammused by something that was not meant to 
be funny is a painful memory from both sides for most people.  The encouraging 
imitation use of expressions is an interesting theory, but doesn't seem to fit 
the facts very well, at least for the "surprise" case, where the person will be 
surprised (or not) even if nothing is said (the emotion is inherent in the 
situation).   The 'o'i' case is better, but then, the emotion of caution seems 
an odd concept from the get-go.
In the US at least surprise parties of the dark room-lights up-shout "surprise" 
sort are common enough to be a recognized listing on incident reports: murders, 
beating, heart attacks, etc.  




----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, November 28, 2010 3:08:06 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Time for the perenial other-centric-.ui conversation

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 12:01 PM, Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com> wrote:
> (Although
> if it's in COI, doesn't it have the side effect of resetting the
> referent of "do"?)

"mi'e" is in COI and does not have that effect. The reason to put
"da'oi" in COI/DOI is because of its syntactic behaviour, not because
of it's meaning. It clearly does not create a vocative like almost all
the other COIs do.

> That said (tangent warning!), I think there's quite a difference
> between zo'o and u'idai. The "surprise!" of an unexpected party is
> much more akin to the former, and is not empathizing with anything at
> all. It is not a perceived emotion, but an intended one. If it is to
> be expressed with a UI at all, and I'm not sure it needs to be, it's
> definitely not one modified with dai (or da'oi, if that's a
> specified-referent dai relative).

That's true. But human beings are imitative creatures, so a common way
of inducing (or trying to induce) an emotion in someone is by
expressing that emotion yourself. So while "u'i" and "zo'o" do have
different definitions, their use is not that far appart, because you
can't very credibly say that something is meant as humor but you are
not amused, or express amusement and deny that you mean it to be
humorous.

Another similar case is (the way I use) ".o'i", which is not so much
to express a feeling of caution as to induce that feeling in someone
else, by the same mechanism of contagion.

> Now, I can see the value of a possible experimental dai-alike for
> intended emotions, such that u'iblah and zo'o are synonymous, and
> ueblah conveys something like "this is said/done with the intent that
> it will be surprising!" But such a hypothetical cmavo is not and
> should not be confused with dai.

I don't see a need, because the distinction between ".u'i" and "zo'o",
while understandable, has always seemed somewhat artificial. What does
it mean when someone adds a smiley to something they write? That they
find it amusing or that they want others to find it amusing? What does
it mean when you say something with a smile? Is it really worth making
such a subtle distinction?

> If da'oi is a semantically dai-like
> cmavo, then this hypothetical would probably quickly get a
> corresponding experimental COI. And I'm not sure the dai-for-intent
> cmavo is even remotely necessary - one could just as easily say "spaji
> .ai" in the three syllables needed for any experimental cmavo not
> starting with x, and use the observative "spaji" instead of "spaji
> da'oi."

I will leave that to TV show scriptwriters (those surprise parties
where the lights are suddenly turned on and everyone says "surprise!"
only happen in TV shows, don't they?) For more natural scenarios, I
think empathetic surprise works well.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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