Re: [lojban] Extensibility of vocatives (do'a non-selbri)

[Cyril Slobin <cyril@slobin.pp.ru>]

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 3:41 AM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Experience good things". Note it is not an imperative nor a hortative or the like,
> just a bare form floating around, just  the sort of thing for a conventional utterance.

In most situations people don't care about fine differences of
imperative, hortative, optative and so on. The difference between the
three rough classes ("statements", "commands" and "questions") is
grammatical, but all the rest is in fact up to speaker. So the real
convention here is to use "command", or "grammatical imperative", as
the "extended vocative", and what exactly are you
command/wish/urge/express a hope to your addressee is up to you too.
"Grammatical imperative" need not to be associated with the evil
sergeant giving you the commands. ;-)

-- 
http://slobin.pp.ru/ `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said,
<cyril@slobin.pp.ru> `it means just what I choose it to mean'

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