Subject: Re: [lojban] The 16 propositional attitude predicates

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 01:20:08 +0000

la djordan cusku di'e

>There are a number of gismu which can take abstactions of du'u type
>(but not only du'u). I dunno if you deliberately left them out or
>not.

Examples? Do they have a person with an attitude towards
the proposition? The one I had doubts about was {ciksi},
which one could force to parallel {ctuca}: "x1 explains
to x3 that fact x4 is true about x2", but explaining x2
is more specific than that, so in a sense it is as if
the {ciksi} place structure has already gone through what
I'm suggesting.

> > Not to mention things like {mi cilre la lojban}, {mi djuno la
> > djan}, {mi jimpe le nabmi}, etc.
>
> .ua this is an interesting point. Except for the fact that it is
>wrong acording to CLL. A quick grep finds in chapter 11, around ex 9.1
> mi morji le li'i mi verba
>So clearly we can use more than just du'u there.

Well, {mi morji le li'i mi verba} certainly does not fit the
place structure "x1 remembers that x2 is true about x3", so this
just reinforces my claim that we tend to use it "wrong": even
the Book does it!

> > So it would seem that having "all the relevant facts" as a sort
> > default for x2 might be a useful thing. (In the case of {krici}
> > "all the relevant facts" are "that it exists", so that {mi krici
> > fi ko'a} would mean that I believe in ko'a, i.e. I believe that
> > ko'a exists.)
>
>Except that zo'e already means "all the relevant blah about whatever".
>Assuming you mean "all the relevant" in the sense I think you mean.
>Obviously you don't know everything about john in "mi djuno fi la
>djan.", the things relevant to the discussion are already expressed
>through the elided zo'e.

Yes, more or less. I think it is more specific than {zo'e},
consider for example: "Who went to the party? I know about John,
but who else?" That "I know about John" is {mi djuno fi la djan},
but it is not "I know John".

>Sure, we can turn djuno into a european-style verb if we want to.
>Actually there wouldn't be a loss of what you can do:
>	mi djuno le gerna poi ckini la lojban.
>	or
>	mi djuno le gerna pe la lojban.
>(with the simplified structure) are essentially the same as:
>	mi djuno le gerna la lojban.
>with the current structure.

Would you really say that {lo gerna} is a fact/a set of facts?
Maybe.

>I think either approach makes sense, but the latter has already been
>chosen, so we should stick with it. (we can't have lojban changing
>more frequently than a natlang changes, can we ? ;P )

Well, I can handle {djuno} very easily because Spanish already
makes the distinction (saber/conocer), but with the others, I
am sure that I often misuse them, especially morji, jimpe,
cilre. I remember facki just because it has been discussed
very often, so that I tend to use tolcri for the basic meaning.
But for Lojban usage to be faithful to the gi'uste, it will
have to change. If it doesn't change then x2 is dropped in
practice, even if that is not well reflected in the documentation.
So the situation is not settled. I'm just trying to decide which
way should I push.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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