Subject: Re: [lojban] .uanai ne'i le velcli

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 09:14:43 EDT

In a message dated 8/18/2002 10:25:42 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> I had to look up "litotes", thanks for the new word. My dictionary
> says it is "an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed
> by the negative of the contrary (as in "not a bad singer")", so
> it wouldn't quite apply.
>>

True, but the word is used broadly for any form of understatement, at least 
by 
> logicians, if not rhetoricians.

<<
In any case, I would have agreed with you not very long ago, but
the spatial tense discussion has left me a bit uneasy about how
exactly the additional (tagged) places fit with the event in
question. If the location need not be connected to each participant,
why does the language have to be connected with every participant?
Of course, if you talk of "sending mail" it sounds weird to
connect it to a language, but if you talk of "being a mail message
that is sent", it certainly can have a language. And {mrilu} is no
more "sending mail" than "being a mailed message", it all depends
on where we focus. I don't have a clear position on the issue right
now, just a lot of doubts.>>

I take it that the role of added places is simply to add new places into the 
mix, making, in this case, a six-place peredicate out of a five-. To be 
sure, it is not clear what the relation of this new place is to the original 
ones -- it might connect to the sender, the sent, the origin, destination, or 
the service, I suppose and, of these, only the sent makes any sense. Or it 
might have a more holistic role. At best, the expression is unclear, at 
worst meaningless (so "nonsense" is a not understated claim). The other 
versions are certainly better.
<<
> lo
>pendo poi mi pu to'e morji le nu ei mi tavla ke'a li'u
> >>
>
>I am unsure about the force of {ei} buried under several subordinators;

I take UIs to apply in the subordinated phrase in which they
appear, with minimum scope. It feels much better using them that
way than trying to figure out what they would mean if they had
widest scope.

My concern was not about the scope (directly) but about the function -- can I 
still be *expressing* a sense of obligation at this depth, or must I be only 
*reporting* it (as I seem to be)? I am (obviously) inclined to the view that 
at this indirect a level I am just reporting that I had felt an obligation 
(though, as noted, even that is uncertain), not expressing one felt now. But 
I don't have better arguments for this than the subordination and that to a 
cognitive predicate, so I am open to argument (and, of course, we may 
disagree about what {ei} does all by itself at top level).