Subject: Re: UI for 'possible' (was: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question)

From: Adam Raizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 03:02:18 +0200

la pycyn. cusku di'e

> > > But that is not what {mi pacna le du'u ko'a klama} means.
> >
> > No, but it's the meaning of 'mi pacna le du'u kau/kau'u ko'a
klama' or
> > 'le du'u ko'a klama zo'u mi pacna le du'u ko'a klama'.
> >
>
> Butmthat was not what you gave as an explication (and I am not sure
that it
> IS what these expressions mean either).

Yes, it was, that's how I defined it.

> <> What you want is
> > for {sei pacna} to be an epistemic particle: "my evidence for the
> claim {ko'a
> > klama} is my hope that it be true" (forcing {ko'a klama} into
retro
> future
> > tense, I suppose).
>
> I'm not sure what 'retro future tense' is, but the 'ko'a klama' in
our
> sentence could be in any tense>
>
> English "will have -N" -- a time before some future time. The
{ko'a klama}
> can't be in just any tense, since hoping requires that the object of
the hope
> not yet be established one way or the other. The event may be in
any
> temporal relation to utterance, but, since its occurrence is not yet
known,
> it is safest to use the indeterminate form.

Hoping requires that the hoper not know how the object of hope came
out or will come out, but it can still occur at any time. "I hope that
he rememebered to go to the store yesterday" makes perfect sense.

> Is an epistemic particle the same as an evidential, like 'ti'e',
> 'ka'u', etc.? I think that the evidentials could be treated in the
> same way, and I can see how I could think of 'possibly' as an
> evidential, so I'll accept that.>
>
> Yes, but I am not sure that "possibly" can be taken as an
evidential, except
> in a rather extended sense ("I can tell it is not contradictory" or
some
> such). It would still be a part of the {i} conjoined forms in
logical
> reading.

Maybe as an evidential only in the extended sense, but the true
evidentials and 'possibly' can be analyzed the same way: 'sei cumki
ko'a klama' --> 'le nu kau'u ko'a klama cu cumki' and 'ti'e ko'a
klama' --> 'sei mi te cusku ko'a klama' --> 'mi te cusku le se du'u
kau'u ko'a klama'

> I am not sure that {li'a} and {sa'e} should be called
metalinguistic, though
> I suppose the case can be made -- complete with the minor arguments
about
> whther it really is clear or precise. Has anybody figure out a way
to use
> {je'unai} (or even {je'u} -- now there is a useless metalinguistic
form,
> surely) meaningfully -- aside from their value as 1 -place logical
> connectives for tautology and contradiction?

If you don't consider 'li'a' and 'sa'e' metalinguistic, what is?
Aren't they quintessential metalinguistic operators?

mu'o mi'e .adam.