[lojban] Syntax and Speech Ax (was xu dai)

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

----- Original Message ----
<<From: tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, July 27, 2011 8:09:50 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: xu dai

On 16 July 2011 17:40, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

I see your point. But an e'u-suggestion can state exactly what the
speaker's suggestion is. It's syntactically indicated. If "e'u" comes
at the beginningn of a sentence, the whole sentence represents that
which I feel "I suggest" about, i.e. the content of what I intend to
be a suggestion. I use a certain syntactical scope marked by "e'u" to
put my suggestion in; how is that different from telling what my
suggestion is by putting it in a NU clause on a certain sumti place of
"stidi"?>>

How is a groan different from saying "I have a pain?  OK, not quite the same, 
but in the same general realm.  We don't say (even with 'dai') that 'do stidi 
,,, ' makes a suggestion; it reports one.  Why should 'mi stidi' be different 
(aside from being somewhat odd, pragmatically  -- unless it has hidden tense 
potential, like "I would have suggested, say)?  We are back to the underlying 
(and more than occasionally ignored) principle, that all communicatively 
relevant information in a sentence is on its face, not buried away in 
(potentially) misleading alternate expressions.  'mi stidi' looks like a report, 


so had better be a report, just 'e'u' had better be a suggestion.  Part of the 
reason for this rule is just the fact that English violates the Hell out it: 
making suggestions, for example,  in the form of questions or judgements or 
reports or commands and Lord knows what else.  Importing this practice into 
Lojban violates the spirit (and, indeed, in some significant places, the letter) 


of what Lojban is about.


<<> '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.
> [...]
> 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.

I don't think "e'u" or any UI1 should mark a pre-defined speech act
type for the given sentence. Whether the sentence is informative /
suggestive / etc. largely depends on pragmatics, contexts:  >>

Yes for English, as a matter of fact; no for Lojban as a matter of design.

<< A: lo vu gerku cu nitcu lo nu mi gy kurji (The dog there needs to be
looked after by me.)
  B: .e'u do tu klama (Why don't you go there?)>>

Your translation uses one of the alternatives of English (a different directive 
use -- these types tend to interchange in English, cf. the question request).  
There is, in fact, no simple English form for suggestions, so we are forced 
into, these alternatives.  The same is not the case for Lojban.

<< A: do noi bebna cu nitcu lo nu mi do kurji (You imbecile need to be
looked after by me.)
  B: .e'u do klama lo malraistu (How about you go to hell?)

Is the second "e'u" making a suggestion or informing the listener of
the fact that the speaker hates to be looked after?>>

Well, a careful listener might infer from the fact that B said this that he did 
not want to be taken care of (or, at least, not by A).  But the sentence does 
not report this, any more than 'e'u ...' reports that I think that  ,,, would be 


a good idea to put into practice.  Though one might infer that from the fact 
that I make the suggestion (and I might equally think it a lousy idea but be a 
kiss-ass).  


<<"True or false" holds for "mi stidi ...", yes, and that's the same for
"e'u ..."; the UI doesn't guarantee that the speaker is actually
making that suggestion.

<< This is obscure.  If you mean that a sentence beginning with 'e'u' is true or 


false, then no, it is not.  If you mean that a person can dissemble with 
suggestions, then, of course he can (as with any other sentence type).  The 
dissembling involves inferences on the part of the hearers, it is not contained 
directly in the words uttered by the speaker.  The inferences assume the speaker 


is following the societal conventions, but he is not.  



<< I agree with:

> 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 also agree with:

> The function of Expressive speech acts is to express feeling and the like.
> [...]
> Expressive is always the expression of the speaker's feeling>>

Oopsy.  I should have said "always presents as an expression..."

<<And I don't think that UI1 cannot be used for other than an Expressive
speech act. Imagine a town in Lojbanistan where the government plans
to build a nuclear power plant. The protesting inhabitants take to the
street and shout ".aunai .aunai". Would that be less Informative than
"na djica .i na djica"?>>

Nicely put.  It would probably be about as informative, but the way the 
information was garnered would be different. In one case, the authorities would 
assume that there protesters are not lying and so take them at their word.  In 
the other case, the authorities would infer that there was opposition to their 
plan and that people felt strongly about it (strongly enough to protest, not an 
insignificant fact).


<<It may be argued even that ".aunai .aunai"
could be as much Directive as Expressive. Is the accused government
supposed to take ".aunai .aunai" as a purely Expressive utterance with
no Directive significance or an utterance with both Expressive and
Directive significances? Would the protesters fail in communicating
the factual piece of information that they don't want the plant in
their town, if they said nothing other than ".aunai .aunai"?>>

It may not be argued for (official) Lojban.  To be sure, again, the government 
can infer from the fact that there is vocal opposition to the plan that some 
people want them not to carry it through, and, depending on how significant 
popular opinion is, this might lead them to recognize a suggestion (or even 
something stronger) not to carry through.  But that was never said, in either 
shout.  These inferences are not haphazard, but are built into the conventions.

This pertains to your and xorxes' later comments:

On 16 July 2011 23:49, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> And one part of all that is to keep one grammatical distinction overt (or at 
>least clearly marked).
> Now it would be a possible one -- but one inviting slippage, I think, to allow 


>that for certain predicate in certain contexts, when unmarked, to indicate a 
>different speech act from the usual one (informative).
> We do it all the time in English, of course, and it creates countless problems 


>for logical analysis.
> Better to stick to the simple rule, hard though it seems to be for people to 
>grasp or follow (why pursue a language which is supposed to change the way you 
>think and then change it back so that it works like one you already have?)

2011/7/17 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> But why should language be limited to serious purposes? It needs to cover the 
>whole gamut of purposes.

For me, 'the simple rule' would be to have "e'u" & "stidi" or "au" &
"djica" etc. being different by default only in their syntax and not
additionally in their speech act types unless explicitly marked as
some.

Now, if

  1) Expressive is always the expression of the speaker's feeling, BUT
  2) koha can simulate with an attitudinal a feeling koha does not have,

what's the point of defining attitudinals as Expressive-only? Indeed,
if we did that, (1) and (2) would wind up being contradictory. Both
you and I agree on (1) and (2); and what appears to be the sole
arrangement for (1) and (2) to not be contradictory, is to not
pre-define and limit all attitidinals to be of a particular speech act
type.>>

See the "oopsy" above.  Expressive presents as an expression of a feeling the 
speaker is actually having, just as a declarative sentence presents as reporting 


a fact the speaker knows (etc., depending on source information and the like).  



> 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 to fill out a form for 
>that to be plausible.

*Asking* a question is not only Directive, is my opinion. It can be as
Expressive as Directive. It can convey as distinct an attitude to
express something as an action to direct the audience to engage in
something. If an utterance is Directive, should it be always
non-Expressive by category? Can you direct somebody to do something
without expressing your inner state of demanding that it be done? As I
said, the act of questioning is the expression of the speaker's mental
posture toward a propositional construct. The "what is it" attitude.
And by "a mental posture" or "an attitude" I don't mean a state
limited to a biological body. Any lingo-logical performer including
computers in a non-closed system can theoretically have the "what is
it" attitude toward a linguistic object. And when that attitude is
expressed either internally or externally, a question is realized.>>

I have no idea what an "inner state of demanding that it be done" is and have 
never experienced it (as such, at least).  The same goes for most of the other 
states you postulate.  I have mentally formulated questions, I have wondered 
about propositions, I have desired certain things to happen and even that 
certain people make them happen and so on.  Some of these have eventuated in 
actual spoken/written questions, others not, and similarly for deisres and 
directives.  And I have asked questions without that inner state, and similarly 
given directions without any interest in whether they are carried out or not.  
The two seem totally separate for me -- as a matter of logic.  That there may be 


psychological connections I don't deny as that is what underlies many of the 
inferences involved.  Someone asks me how to get to Marthasville.  I give them 
directions, a recipe (a directive use of language, for the most part, if you 
leave out the side comments) for getting there.  I don't care whether they 
follow these directions or not, or whether they get to Marthasville at all.  At 
the most, I might be concerned about whether my directions were correct (i.e, 
would, if followed, lead one to Marthasville)

<<I distinguish "asking a question" from "a question", just like
"expressing an emotion" from "an emotion". Questions and emotions per
se are of course not the same thing, but asking a question and
expressing an emotion are both primarily a (biological or
non-biological) cognitive performance, 'attitudinal', in my opinion.>>

Well, asking a question is a speech act, as is expressing an emotion.  The 
question is a linguistic object capable of being uttered -- and is uttered in 
the course of asking it.  What exactly an emotion is, is a bit harder, but it 
seems to an internal mental state or activity of some sort, which may be 
revealed in any number of ways, including direct expression as well as reports 
and various fidgets (depending on the emotion involved).  I'm not clear where 
this is supposed to fit into whatever is going on here.


<< 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).

Do we ask a (real) question for the sake always of only summoning up
an answer, or sometimes of also expressing our answer-seeking
attitude? Would the question "xu do mi prami" be a failed utterance if
I couldn't get an answer? Or would it be a successful one regardless
of the response or the lack thereof, for the very fact that I would
have successfully expressed what it is that I question? Like "e'u" and
"aunai", I think the function or the speech act type of "xu" in its
actual uses is dynamically variable, however static its syntax may be.>>

Again, I can imagine English examples of what I think you mean, but they don't 
translate in Lojban as questions.  'xu do mi prami' wants an answer (probably 
too needily) so that not getting an overt answer provides much the same 
information as a negative answer would -- but not by answering.  So, if, as on 
your theory, there was a need that this question expressed, then presumably that 


need was met.  But that hardly means the question was expressing that need, 
though it was a handy tool for getting it filled (even if negatively).  Notice 
that, as far as the need goes, 'mi prami do' , say in the right tone of voice 
and the right circumstances, would do as well.

<<"Aiming to elicit an answer" seems to have a sense of ".au" or
".uanai". I compare:

  ma klama
  zo'e .uanai klama

  do xu klama
  do .uanai klama

These are analogous if not entirely identical. The main difference is
that "ma" and "xu" explicitly expect of the audience to return a
syntactically corresponding solution, which "uanai" doesn't. "xu" is
used in aiming to elicit an answer, yes; used by what? The utterer.
The same origin as of "uanai". Whenever "xu" is used, an aspect of the
utterer is indicated, in addition to the fact that an answer is
expected to be presented. I consider that Expressive, in addition to
Directive.>>

Sorry, I don't even see the analogy.  One asks who is coming -- thus assuming 
someone is, the second expresses surprise that anyone is coming (thus assuming a 

prior belief that no one was). Similarly the second set: the first asks whether 
you are coming (presupposing no definite knowledge one way or the other) the 
second expresses surprise that you come (presupposing knowing that you are 
come).  They seem totally unrelated.


<<> 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.

Would you say the following parenthetical remarks make sense?

  xu broda to mi teryrei lo jei broda toi

  xu dai broda to mi sruma lo du'u na'e mi teryrei lo jei broda toi

I think they do. If I'm asked what the meaning of "xu dai" might be, I
could say "mi sruma lo du'u na'e mi teryrei lo jei ...".>>

Let's see 'broda' here stands for a sentence and the parenthetical remarks are 
meant to explain what is going on in the sentence with the added marker.  So the 
first one makes sense, except that it is not clear that I am asking for the the 
truth value, rather than for 'go'i' or 'na go'i'.  For the second, I don't see 
why you are assuming anything about yourself and I don't know what the polar 
opposite of asking about a truth value is (telling about the false-value of?), 
so it doesn't obviously fit.  But, in any case, the parentheticals are at best 
descriptions of what is going on, not equivalents of the original sentences 
(which are questions, after all, not reports).

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