Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 1:13 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>  If some one says {ai mi klama} he is
> expressing an intention to go and thereby committing himself and those
> around him to various things (minimally, that he try to go and that involves
> certain sorts of preparations, etc.).

Is he really? I would have said expressing an intention does not
create any commitment, just like expressing pain or happiness doesn't
create any commitment. It seems to me that expressing an intention
just exposes one's current mental stance with regards to the taking of
some action. One can later change one's mind for whatever reason and
the prior expression of intention shouldn't be affected. A different
case is the making of a promise, which does get broken if the promised
action is not carried out. If you express an intention to do
something, others can to some extent expect that you will do it, but
if it turns out you don't end up doing it they can't really
recriminate you, can they? They can ask about it but "I later changed
my mind" is the only explanation you need to give, and by doing that
you don't make the original expression any less genuine.

>   Notice, however,
> that, taking {brodu} as "x1 intends to do x2 (action)/ does x2
> intentionally" (I'm not actually sure these are the same, but never mind for
> now),

They are rather different though: you may intend to do something and
yet never actually end up doing it, while if you do something
intentionally you obviously do do it. "Do intentionally" is do +
intend, "intend" is just intend. That's why "zukte" doesn't really
work for intend, which only describes a mental state.

> if he says {mi brodu le nu mi klama} and did not really intend to go,
> the sentence is false, even if he did in fact go.

Right, intention is about the mental stance towards the action, not
about carrying it out.

> We want to be able to
> describe what someone is doing when he says {ai}, but there is no
> description that does what {ai} does.

At least no claim or assertion can do it, but you can use a
proposition for other purposes than making claims. "ca'e" is supposed
to mark a sentence as a performative (despite its gloss), so if you
say "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi brodu lo nu klama"; "I hereby express my
intention to go", you are thereby expressing an intention to go. So
".ai" could be taken as an abreviated form of "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi
brodu". Similarly for other attitudinals, "ui" is similar to "ca'e mi
jarco lo nu mi gleki", "I hereby display my happiness", and so on.
(The wordy form doesn't quite have the same practical effect though.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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