From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Sun Feb 03 14:26:45 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 3 Feb 2002 22:26:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 86843 invoked from network); 3 Feb 2002 22:26:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m11.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 3 Feb 2002 22:26:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta05-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.45) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 3 Feb 2002 22:26:44 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.41.90]) by mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with SMTP id <20020203222642.GQSL7206.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sun, 3 Feb 2002 22:26:42 +0000 To: "lojban" Subject: RE: UI for 'possible' (was: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 22:25:56 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <006201c1ac42$588c6720$12b4003e@default> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=77248971 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Adam: > la .and. cusku di'e > > > Well, I can't quite remember whether sei is supposed to be > > metalinguistic, or whether it is just a device for creating > adverbials, > > but if it is metalinguistic then I do object. Woldy is inaccessible > > to me right now, so I can't check. > > The book does say that 'sei' is 'metalinguistic', but it doesn't fully > explain what it means by that. 'po'o' and 'da'i' are included among > the 'metalinguistic' indicators of UI, so I think that metalinguistic > indicators can alter the truth value. I think that not unreasonably, 'metalinguistic' is being used to cover what Grice called 'conventional implicature'. If {po'o} is 'metalinguistic' then it ought to mean something like 'merely'. As pc & I have always maintained, logical 'only' ought not to be done by {po'o}: ("only X are P" = "every P is X"). Likewise, I feel strongly that {da'i} ought not alter truth conditions; it should indicate that the speaker is not claiming the proposition within its scope to be true. > Otherwise, a large number of > pontential sei-phrases become useless. 'sei cumki' would be useless, > since the sentence claims the main bridi, and anything true is also > possible. Not every unmarked sentence is a claim. Without overt indicators, the illocutionary force has to be glorked from context, though of course without strong contextual evidence to the contrary, we do assume that an unmarked sentence is a claim. "broda sei cumki" could then reasonably interpreted as something like "Broda? (perhaps)", where no claim is being made, and the speaker is making an incidental/parentheticl indication that they think it possible that "broda" is true. > Likewise, 'sei tolcu'i' would be useless, since it would > claim the main bridi, and anything true is not impossible. I think > that whether the truth value is altered is a matter of what the > sei-clause is, as it is with the rest of the indicators. > > Barring that, how *would* you do adverbs? Supposedly, nouns, > adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are all collapsed into selbrivla in > lojban, but this doesn't work, as I assume that there would be even > greater objections to 'mi cumki klama' meaning 'I possibly go'. Is > restructuring the sentence to be the only way to do it? Adverbs are of course a heterogeneous class, both syntactically and semantically. But taking your 'average' adverb, logically it would normally correspond to a predicate, predicated of a proposition (or state-of-affairs). But if you want to keep adverby sort of syntax, then use a BAI, either the BAI for manner, or else fi'o. Placing the modal before the selbri allows for the omission of the sumti. --And.