Re: [lojban] Re: xu dai

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

Not sure whether this is terminological or conceptual, but things don't square 
up with my understanding.  'mi stidi lo nu do klama' and 'e'u do klama' are not 
equally Informative 

speech acts, since 'e'u' makes the following sentence not informative but a 
suggestion, a Directive speech act.  To be sure, I can infer that you have a 
suggestion from the fact that you actually propose one, but proposing it isn't 
saying that you have one, which is what 'mi stidi ... ' does.  And, of course, 
it is usually OK to infer from you stating 'mi stidi ...' that you are actually 
making that suggestion, though 'mi stidi ...' doesn't actually do that.  Among 
the many things that hold for 'mi stidi...' is that it is true or false, neither 

of which applies to 'e'u ...' though they may have many other properties in 
common -- mostly those related to the feasibility of the suggestion.  Neither of 

these is, by the way, Expressive of anything.
The function of Expressive speech acts is to express feeling and the like.  But, 

just as one can misinform using an Informative speech act, one can simulate a 
feeling one does not have in an Expressive speech act.  The syntactical 
legitimacy of the form does not rely on its accuracy.
I find the notion that asking a question is Expressive a little hard to follow: 
what is it expressing?  Surely not curiosity on the part of the speaker -- or 
even interest; there are far too many bureaucrats asking too many questions just 

top fill out a form for that to be plausible.  Again, we may, in some cases, 
infer an interest or curiosity (possibly wrongly) from the fact that someone 
asks a question, but that is in our inference, not in the question itself.  The 
questions function is to summon up an answer (period).  Aiming to elicit an 
answer hardly seems in line with feeling pain or pleasure or other central UI 
concepts (though perhaps related to some of the function-changing UI, which are 
also not Expressive, by and large).
In the case of the racers, ko'e (winner) and ko'a (second) , ko'a's 'ui cai dai' 
presents itself as an expression of ko'a's empathetic feeling for ko'e's triumph 
(that he may be feeling no such thing is beside the point)  ko'e is feeling 
elated, ko'a is (presented as) feeling an empathetic elation for ko'e.  
Expressive is always the expression of the speaker's feeling (how could you 
express my feeling?  consider what "express" means)  But 'dai' allows that I may 
feel something akin to what someone else feels when presented with the other 
person's expressions of their feeling.  Of course, I may also feel something 
quite different (maybe at the same time): hatred, jealousy, sympathy and so on.

----- Original Message ----
From: tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, July 16, 2011 6:43:00 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: xu dai

On 13 July 2011 18:45, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> We seem to be wading into a definitional swamp.  To stop before we get in over
> our heads, can we agree on the following.  Sentences can be used to perform a
> variety of speech acts.  These acts fall into several families, the most
> commonly mentioned being Informative, Directive, and Expressive. 
Attitudinals,
> insofar as they are linguistic at all (a disputed point, but more likely for
> Lojban than generally) are Expressive. mirroring the inner states of the
> speaker.  They may influence the direction of the conversation (as may 
anything
> said) but that is not their role.

"mi stidi" and ".e'u" seem to be capable of imparting the same
information, direction, and attitude; both can be equally Informative,
Directive, and Expressive. They differ much in syntax but perhaps
little in speech act type. If I change "mi stidi lo nu do klama" to
".e'u do klama", the syntax changes, but the type of speech act
doesn't necessarily.

If I said ".ui" while my actual inner state is ".uinai", would that be
an invalid Lojban expression? If not, attitudinals aren't necessarily
Expressive, mirroring the speaker's inner states, as you define it.


> Questions, on the other hand, are Directive:
> they aim to influence someone else's behavior, in this case, come up with an
> answer, so the behavior to be influenced is linguistic, too.  That is, 
>questions
> are intended to influence ths course of the conversation (though not, except
> accidentally, non-linguistic behavior).  Questions may be accompanied by any
> emotion whatsoever, curiosity being a common one, but probably not more common
> than politeness and boredom.

Right, questions aim to elicit an answer. And I consider that an
attitude, a mental posture, on the part of the utterer. You ask a
question, you express your attitude toward a propositional construct:

  xu do klama
  "You come" -- true or false?

  ma klama
  "X comes" -- what is X?

Both are not only Directive but also likely Expressive, expressing the
speaker's mental posture. And Expressive can be realized by UI or
non-UI.


> So, to get back to the original question, I can have an empathetic feeling
> matching someone else's feeling and express my feeling (not someone else's)
> using 'dai'.

Suppose there are two athletes, ko'a and ko'e, preparing for the
Olympic 100 meters. They are equally determined to win the gold medal.
They go through the same physical and emotional hardship. Eventually,
at the game, ko'e wins the gold medal, ko'a the silver. ko'e is
evidentlly blissed out. ko'a distressfully cries, but ko'a can
understand what is like to win the first prize and easily empathize
with ko'e so as to say to ko'e ".ui cai dai". Whose actual feeling is
more likely being represented by this: ko'a's or ko'e's? Would you say
ko'a's 'matches' ko'e's?


mu'o mi'e tijlan

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