Re: [lojban] Re: Is there any real diffrence between hope (.a'o) and desire (.au)?

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

On 31 August 2012 18:23, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Aside from the oddity of defining an emotional expression, this seems wrong
> to me even as an example.{ba'a} is an evidential, a shorthand reason for
> accepting a claim.  It is, admittedly, a weak one, even if we throw in the
> speaker's expertise in the matter, but it still starts a case for accepting
> the following, even tentatively.

For weakly accepting or presenting a claim, there are {ju'oru'e},
{la'aru'e}, and some others. From my perspective, {ba'a, ba'acu'i,
ba'anai} are more like evidential 'modifiers', used to mark off the
temporality of whatever epistemological basis of a statement. To
emphasize the differences:

ba'anai lo dzipo cu melbi
I have since before been able to claim that Antarctica is beautiful.

ba'acu'i lo dzipo cu melbi
I now am able to claim that Antarctica is beautiful.

ba'a lo dzipo cu melbi
I might in the future be able to claim that Antarctica is beautiful.


>  I also doubt that
> the neutral "what might happen" is a reasonable reading for {ba'a}, give the
> more definite readings of the other points on it's scale.

The difference in definiteness may be due to the variation in
actuality (of whatever epistemological basis):

ba'anai -- evidence was obtained (definite basis); 'I remember'
ba'acu'i -- evidence is being obtained (developing basis); 'I experience'
ba'a -- evidence might be obtained (indefinite basis); 'I anticipate'

If by "neutral" you mean "not specifying the likelihood of the
statement being true", I think that's how {ba'a} should work,
especially to the extent that we have other UIs to specify such (if I
wanted to attitudinally indicate that something shall turn out to be
the case, I'd insert somethingn like {ju'o} rather than simply
{ba'a}).


> But {a'o} doesn't introduce a claim at
> all, let alone suggests reasons for accepting it.  If anything, it suggests
> (pragmatics at work) that the sentence following is likely to be false (just
> as "fear" suggests that follows is likely to be true).

If an athlete's odds of winning a gold medal were 80%, couldn't her
supporters still hope she would win? Conversely, if the odds were 20%,
could they hope she would win? I think it depends. Factors other than
likelihood can affect one's threshold for hope. The success of a 2.5
billion dollar rover mission to a red planet may be more hope-worthy
than the success of a 2.5 dollar mission to find a four-leaf clover in
a big garden, even if these were equally feasible.

{a'o} is felt toward something that the speaker wants to be true but
is yet to know to be so. I agree that {a'o} doesn't bear a
truth-claim. Why not? Hope emerges in a certain kind of
temporal-epistemological relation between the mind & the object, such
that the mind is yet to come across evidence for the object. I cannot
hope X if I remember X (ba'anai). I cannot hope X if I experiencce X
(ba'acu'i). I can hope X if I anticipate X (ba'a). And of course
anticipation doesn't introduce a claim. What {a'o} introduces, in
addition to an emotion, seems to be evidentiality.


mu'o

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