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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 09:14:47 EDT

In a message dated 8/19/2002 5:49:13 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> .i.oi mi cortu le stedu
u'u
<<
> I am unsure about the force of {ei} buried under several subordinators; 
> I suspect that {mi bilga le nu} is meant, but seems inappropriate 
> without a lot of detail: what standard is involved (I planned to, I 
> promised to, I am legally bound to, ...; this looks like merely "I 
> planned to." in which case, forgetting covers all the obligation 
> involved -- you can't forget to do -- I take it that {lenu in this 
> sense is OK --what isn't on the list). 
>>

The question is, first, whether one is here *expressing* an obligation or 
merely *reporting* that one has (or had) one. I think that {ei} only 
expresses and that this case is too deeply buried to be an expression, hence 
the need to state the obligation openly. Secondly, the question is whether 
there is really an obligation here that needs to be reported even. In the 
context, I think the fact that it is something I forgot to do is sufficient 
to implicate that it was something that I had a (very weak) obligation to do, 
and so neither the {ei} nor the {mi bilga ...} is needed.