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

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

----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, November 30, 2010 5:07:39 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Time for the perenial other-centric-.ui conversation

 No, "uinai" is an expression of saddness, it is not an expression of
happiness followed by the negation (or reversal) of the preceding
expression.

{The word (if you prefer that) 'uinai' is composed of the word 'ui' , used to 
express happiness, followed by the word 'nai', the polar negation; together they 
used, unsurprisingly to express the polar negation of happiness.  Where is the 
problem with that?  The point is that it is still a first person word, it 
expresses my sadness, whoever I may be in the situation, not yours or theirs.  
The fact that we happen to have word for the polar negation of happiness is 
irrelevant -- there several words in these sets where that is not true, but the 
forms work just the same.}

You misanalyze both "uinai" and "uipei".

{Well, I certainly didn't misanalyze 'uinai' and, so far as anything you have 
said goes, 'uipei' is simply unanalyzable, since its parts are contradictory.}


You seem to be confusing words with expressions (i.e. the use of
words). "nai" does not change an expression, it changes a word. If you
really think that expressing sadness is akin to a blend of expressing
happiness and then doing something else, (expressing reversal? or
what?) then I'm afraid we won't get anywhere with this.

{Faked obtuseness does not become you, but OK.  If the shift between word and 
expression is puzzling, lets put it this way: 'uinai' is a word composed of the 
word 'ui', which is used by a person to express his happiness, and the word 
'nai', used to form the polar opposites of other words.  The result is thus a 
word 'uinai' which is to be used by a person to express the polar opposite of 
happiness, sadness, as he is feeling it (putatively). 

'uipei' is a word formed from 'ui' as above and 'pei' a word which asks about a 
voiced item of the right sort ('ui' is) what degree of the the emotion (etc.) is 
intended.  Combined then it would seem to mean that the person uttering it is 
expressing merely an uncertainty about where on the scale from happiness to 
sadness his feeling lie.  That seems a reasonable question ask sometimes, even 
if rarely.  But that is not 'uipei' is reported to mean: it is expressing 
nothing and asking a second person to express (not state) where their feelings 
lie on that scale  -- even though that second person may have shown no 
inclination to express anything at all on that scale.  What miracle made this 
transformation?  I assume it was some combination of laziness and the perennial 
confusion between expressing and stating, but even those hardly seem adequate.  
The fact that 'ui' 'pei' is a perfectly reasonable exchange may have contributed 
as well.}

> "UI ja'ai" is equivalent to UI by itself, I'm quite sure you
> understood that perfectly. It is the identity modifier in the CAI/NAI
> series, if you prefer to put it that way.
> Ø
> Ø      [Well, as I said, this is an innovation whose purpose is obscure.

It is often necessary to have the syntactic support even when the
semantic effect is neutral.

If you understand the purpose of "ja'a" and "ja'e", you will also
understand the purpose of "ja'ai".

{As I said, it seems an odd place to make this addition when there are other 
places that need it more, but I do understand what it is for: reassuring your 
interlocutor that you really did mean this UI, not some other.  And perhaps that 
you mean it bare, without further qualifications.}

> I
> suppose it is meant to reassure that I really meant this UI rather than some
> other: “Whee – yes indeed”, probably in response to a ‘pei’.  It seems like
> there are other places where something like this would be more useful, but I
> most of them can be covered by the placement of ‘ja’a’]

I'm surprised that you think "ja'a" can replace "ja'ai", since "ja'a"
is a strictly propositional operator.

{Fortunately you actually included the relevant quote, so notice that I nowhere 
say that 'ja'a' can replace 'ja'ai'; I said that most of the *other* cases which 
need affirmers can be handled by 'ja'a', which can, I think, turn up just about 
anywhere in a bridi.  If I am wrong about that, then I would go back to askinbg 
why we have one here and not in half a dozen other slots.}

>> And of
>> course 'ie' is a perfectly good answer to 'xu do tugni' since that is in fact
>> its main purpose, as a "Yes" for a particular sort of question.
>
> "ie" makes more sense in response to a statement than to a question,
> because a question makes no claim with which to agree or disagree.
>
> Pragmatically, since the question as posed is about agreement,
> answering "ie" would probably be understood, but strictly speaking
> there is no claim advanced with which to agree or disagree.
> Ø
> Ø      [I suppose this is a contextual matter.  One doesn’t ordinarily ask for
> agreement unless there has been a position set out already, the x2 and x3  of
> ‘tugni’.  I couldn’t think of a case to lay out, so I skipped it, figuring tou
> could fill in the blanks.]

A: xu do mi tugni lo du'u lo snime cu blabi
B: ie

The expected answers to a xu-question are "go'i" or "na go'i", meaning:

go'i= mi do tugni lo du'u lo snime cu blabi
na go'i= mi do na tugni lo du'u lo snime cu blabi

{I know what it says*says*, but I also know what it usually means.  One who asks 
"Do you agree" is asking for a commitment, not genuinely asking a factual 
question -- despite the form.  'ie' is thus even semantically acceptable.}

The answer "ie" is pragmatically acceptable, but strictly speaking
doesn't make much sense. It doesn't mean: "ie [go'i]", B agreeing that
they agree, because there was no claim put forth that they agree. It
means "ie [lo snime cu blabi]", but that claim was not put forth
directly either.

The natural use of ïe is in:

A: lo snime cu blabi
B: ie

As a response to a claim, not to a xu-question, or also:

A: lo snime cu blabi iepei
B: ie

as a response to a "iepei" question.

If someone asks you a "Do you agree that ..." and you say "Yes" you are agreeing 
on that matter.  That is part of the logic of "agree" and of 'tugni' too, as far 
as I can tell (otherwise the translation is terribly misleading),  You can agree 
without being asked, of course, though one usually doesn't; one just 
acknowledges that the claim is true, without any commitments.  'iepei' suffers 
from the same problems as 'uipei': only I can commit myself and asking me to do 
so when I have no inclination at all along that line is just plain Uncooperative 
(the worst crime in Conversation).  Of course, it also doesn't really ask me to 
that, rather the speaker is mulling the question of commitment -- a wise move 
generally.)

> Logic doesn't really enter into it, but "pei" is certainly nice and regular.
>
> [Well, no.  ‘nai’, say, takes a first person expression and then modifies it 
in
> this case rejecting it “Whee – not”, as we say, and similarly for “Whee – 
>sorta”
>
> and so on.

No, that's wrong. When someone says "uinai", they don't start by
expressing happiness. The only thing they express is sadness.

> But ‘pei’ does not start out with a first person expression and add
> something to it.

The word "pei" modifies the preceding word. The compound "UI pei" is
used to ask a question. The meaning of "UI pei" is easily and
regularly derived from the meanings of "UI" and "pei".

{You keep saying this in the face of a mass of contrary evidence but give not 
the vaguest indication of how this comes about.  How does first person word use 
to express a feeling, become a second person word use to indicate a scale?  What 
are the steps, that parallel those for 'uinai', say?

> It somehow changes the first person expression into a second
> person and then asks about it.

You keep confusing words with expressions (=the use of words).

{OK a word used to express a first person experience into one about a second 
person experience.  The shiorter form is easier and no one has been confused, I 
think.}

> There is a perfectly legitimate (is so far as
> ‘pei’ is legitimate at all) use that looks like this: Speaker says 
>‘ui’,‘pei’say
> the hearer.  No person shifting and a reasonable sort of thing to ask.]

That's not how "pei" is meant to work, and not how it works in practice either.

{Why isn't that?  That is a perfectly good use and involves no contradictions.  
I suspect it doesn't work that way because it is in the wrong word class, 
haven't been mixed up with 'nai' and the like, in some late night brainstorming 
after a pizza and Jolt party in Virginia (there wer a lot of them and some of 
them still show).}


      

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