Re: [lojban] baby words, but general relevance: dai-like cmavo

[Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com>]

I waffle on this one so much.  I kind of wish that "attitudinals" were not defined as "how the speaker feels" but more generically like "equivalent to the grunts and such from other languages".  e.g. it would be nice (as I'm guessing Robin is making reference to) the sound one makes when they see a kid running and suddenly fall and skin their knee or some such.  In english this sound is "ooooo" while making a "grimace" _expression_.  Expressing this is not a semantic statement with at truth value so for we jbopre, it feels like it should be an attitudinal.

So what should it be?  I don't feel pain.  I feel sympathy because I observe you feeling pain.

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Michael Turniansky
<mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 13, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Michael Turniansky
>> <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >   We seem to be in agreement here.  Who  wants in "au se'inai"?  *I* do.
>> > What's the reason for my want?  Someone else.  Who complains in "oi
>> > se'inai"?  I do.  What's the reason for my complaint?  Someone else.
>> > Hence,
>> > "That fall you took hurt me!"  Whereas "oi dai" to me only conveys "I
>> > see
>> > that YOU hurt".
>>
>> No, oidai expresses a feeling on the part of the speaker. That feeling
>> is one of empathetic pain, and implies that the speaker feels pain on
>> behalf of the listener (whether or not the listener actually feels any
>> pain).
>>
>> This is important, because the UI (other than xu) are strangely
>> non-declarative. There is a crucial difference between ".ui" and "mi
>> gleki". You might be lying about how you feel, so "mi gleki" is simply
>> false; ".ui" has no truth value, ever. It cannot be affirmed, obeyed,
>> or answered, as it is not semantically declarative, imperative, or
>> interrogative. Since I can very readily be mistaken about how you
>> feel, saying ".oi" on your behalf makes no sense - it's expressing
>> something that I have no way of knowing even exists, without allowing
>> you to dispute it. An empathetic feeling, on the other hand, is no
>> less real just because the person being empathized with feels
>> differently; that's the kind of feeling ".oidai" expresses.
>>
>   But I never asserted that "oidai" declares or (as you use later),
> "asserts".  I said it CONVEYS that meaning.
>   In fact, now that I have just reread the lojban reference grammar, that's
> EXACTLY the example they give. (13.10.9) and then goes on to say, "Both
> ``pei'' and ``dai'' represent exceptions to the normal rule that
> attitudinals reflect the speaker's attitude."
>
>   I didn't THINK I was making this up.
>           --gejyspa

Hm, so it does.

The ma'oste gives the following: "dai  UI5  attitudinal modifier:
marks empathetic use of preceding attitudinal; shows another's
feelings"

If this were a simple conflict between the Book and the ma'oste (as
with the syntax of "vo'a"), I'd say the Book ought to win, but the
book's example here is actually not self-consistent interpreted your
way - it glosses ".oiro'odai" as "[pain!] [physical] [empathy]", which
implies that the speaker is empathizing with the listener's pain
rather than merely referring to it, and proceeds to translate it more
idomatically as "Ouch! That must've hurt!" (which pe'i implies the
speaker feels something too, even though they're not physically
injured) right before it tells you it's not about the speaker's
attitude. It proceeds thence to example 13.10.10, empathizing with a
non-living object, which can *only* be about the speaker's empathetic
emotions and has nothing to do with an actual belief in the ship's
emotions, before giving the sentence you quoted. The fact that
(barring syntactically-dubious experimental COI) there's no way to
specify who you're empathizing with, only to describe an empathetic
feeling, seems to bolster this understanding as well, and of course
example 13.10.10 makes it crystal clear the empathy may not be with
anyone present.

I think it's fairest to say that "dai" does reflect the speaker's
attitude, but is an exception to the normal rule that attitudinals are
*only* about the speaker's feelings. This one is about that, but in a
way that has reference to others' feelings as perceived (however
implausible that perception, as in the ship example) by the speaker.

 - mi'e .kreig.

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