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Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention
Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there
is no gismu for "intention"?
The intended gismu corresponding to intention was "platu", or perhaps
some compound thereof. I'll accept the possible use of zukte proposed
by someone else, though I think intention need not be purposive either.
{zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It should be clarified, that is changed.
The gismu list is baselined. We haven't allowed changes merely for
clarity for nearly 20 years.
But in point of fact, there is some indication in the list associating
zukte with intention - see the note on the definition of lifri for example.
Just {zukte djica}?
Intention is entirely orthogonal to desire, IMNSHO
Another possibility for intention would be nalsnuti, but I'm not sure
that would cover the full range of the attitudinal of intention.
Just a metaphorical tanru?
It isn't, but if it were, so what? When we started the project, there
was certainly no stigma attached to metaphorical interpretations.
Indeed, some of the gismu are explicitly defined with metaphorical use
in mind (e.g. the mention of protrusion for nazbi). Such use of
metaphor has sometimes been deprecated by the community, but we thought
it far preferable to a significantly larger gismu list or more extensive
borrowing of words from other languages.
Or a lujvo again derived from {djica}?
We would of course have used a lujvo made from the metaphoric tanru, if
the concept had been based on such a metaphor.
And why such a huge bias in favor of cmavo and not predicates in a
*predicate language*?
What bias? There are over 1300 gismu, and far fewer cmavo.
If you refer to the attitudinals and other members of UI and the lack of
explicit ties to gismu, please remember that the attitudinal system was
redesigned and greatly expanded *after* the rest of the language was
essentially complete, in 1989-1990. JCB's original set of attitudinals
allowed for only a dozen or two possible expressions. I had expanded
this to around three dozen with intensity markers, but people kept
finding holes.
My priority thus was in defining an attitudinal system that worked, and
that could cover the entire range of emotions expressed in any and all
human languages, as well as (insofar as possible) nonverbal expressions
of emotion/attitude as well, and then to go beyond that to ones that
someone might WANT to express if the language allowed it.
Once it was done, we had little clue how to define some of the concepts
and distinctions clearly in any language, much less Lojban (and not
within the confines of the fixed length LogFlash definition field which
was the then-standard limitation on definitions). (The difficulty in
defining cmavo is why there was no dictionary published in the early
1990s, and why CLL was written as a necessary prerequisite to any
dictionary effort - until we clearly defined the selma'o, the word
definitions were too difficult a problem.)
By the time the attitudinal revision was complete and accepted, the
gismu list was complete, and preliminarily baselined; we required votes
at LogFest for any additions, and there was strong resistance to adding
to the set of gismu (and indeed some gismu were deleted in such votes; I
still remain fond of gumri = mushroom). But this wasn't seen as a bias
against "predicates", but rather as a strong bias in favor of
compounding over adding primitive roots in growing the lexicon. The
attitudinal system itself reflected that bias, in that a huge number of
attitudes were designed to be expressed by compound cmavo (indicating
intensity as well as opposition and the thoroughly original/untested
social/mental/emotional/physical/sexual (and later-added spiritual)
modifiers.
There wasn't any real after-the-fact attempt to match attitudinals and
gismu beyond a vague attempt to be sure that all of the attitudinals
could be somehow expressed as compounds or whatever. And indeed, doing
so might have been problematic, because the oppositions expressed in the
attitudinal system (using nai) wouldn't necessarily represented by
nal+gismu (e.g. a'enai e'inai), and we couldn't have made the
attitudinal system as comprehensive using as few cmavo, if we had been
so constrained.
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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