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

["Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

Mike S. wrote:
> If I am free and officially sanctioned to say "ui" disingenuously i.e.
> without really being happy, or I can say "ai" without even the slightest
> conscious real intention (at the time, perhaps speaking a complete lie)
> of follow-through, then I fear that "ui" and "ai" have no real meaning.
> Is this what is wanted?

Yes - or at least any "meaning" is orthogonal to the truth of the bridi 
being expressed.

> Consider what politicians would do with these
> conventions.  Consider what they already do speaking English.

One cannot stop people from misusing language.  That doesn't mean that 
one should define language for the intent of having it misused.

> If attitudinals don't assert at least a vague albeit real feeling felt
> by the speaker, what do attitudinals really do?

Express. Attitude.

Something that human beings do naturally, often without language, which 
makes it rather difficult to communicate via email or even by telephone 
in the same way we can communicate in person.  Attitudinals are an 
attempt to remedy that deficiency, and they only really work if we can 
use them fluently without thinking about them, in the same way that body 
language, tone of voice, and the occasional ejaculative expression works 
for natlang speakers.

  But why in a logical language, a predicate-based
> language, should the semantics of this small set of illocutionary
> constructions be extended to the inner states of the speaker?

The attitudinals are orthogonal to the predicate-base language.  They 
fulfil an expressive need of human beings that CANNOT be met with 
predictations, that are fundamentally NOT "logical".

Someone wishing to speak a purely "logical" language would never use 
attitudinals.

  Why
> _doesn't_ the speaker saying "ui" simply imply that the speaker is
> really gleki,

Because human beings are illogical.

> as a person would intuitively suspect?  What does it
> really mean otherwise?

It doesn't "mean" anything, truth-functionally.

> What do we gain from that dubious interpretation?

Humanity.
--
Bob LeChevalier    lojbab@lojban.org    www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

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