Subject: Re: [lojban] conditionals in Lojban

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 02:37:14 -0400

At 04:00 AM 04/23/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>la lojbab cusku di'e
> > >Not {cusku}, that's for saying the words.
> >
> >The medium of expression velsku need not be "words".
>
>So how do you say "he expressed happiness" using {cusku}?

With no information about the medium of expression, all I can say is
ko'a cusku lu'e leka gleki

> > >Also not necessarily {cinmo}, as some attitudes are not emotions,
> >
> >I'm not clear as to which ones are not.
>
>For example {ai}, intentions are not emotions as far
>as I understand.

When you look at the range described, you can see that it is a scale of 
willingness or decisiveness. There is no good English word for the 
positive emotion on this scale other than "intent" (maybe "determination"?)

> >For example, all of the
> >attitudinals are potentially subject to modification by the emotional
> >classifiers ro'V, so in Lojban they are to some extent all "emotions".
>
>Yes, if you redefine "emotion" as "anything expressed by Lojban
>attitudinals", then every attitudinal expresses an emotion. Is that
>what {cinmo} means, or does it correspond to a more standard
>meaning of "emotion"?

Emotion:
"strong feeling; exctiement"
"The state or capability of having the feelings aroused to the point of 
awareness"
"Any specific feeling"

Feeling:
"Feeling, when unqualified by context, refers to any of the subjective 
reactions, pleasurable or unpleasurable that one may have to a situation 
and usually connotes an absence of reasoning".

Sounds like a paraphrase of what pc said and it certainly covers all of the 
attitudinals, since they are not subject to the logic/reasoning of the rest 
of the language.

> >Most emotions or attitudes are expressed as a response to some stimulus.
>
>Yes. But I don't need to be aware of the stimulus in order
>for me to understand what you're expressing when you say oi,
>ui or u'i. I do need to know what ei or ai are about in order
>to understand what you're expressing.

I'm expressing a reaction. There is something that I feel obliged to do 
(or given your broader definition, there is something that I feel must be 
made right in the world) and there is something that I intend to do. oi 
means that there is something that I am complaining about. I don't see a 
great difference.

> And what stimulated you
>to feel obligated or to feel an intention is not what I mean,
>it is what you intend or have to do that I need to know.

I don't express things for your benefit necessarily. It is no more nor 
less important that you need to know those than it is that you need to know 
what I am complaining about.

>Oh. You were asking about a "bare" ".ai" not one that was not in response
> >to something.
>
>I was saying that ai and ei need something to be about,
>whereas oi, ui and u'i can express a pure attitude by
>themselves, irrespective of what caused the feeling.

I can vaguely accept the idea that one can be basically happy without being 
happy about something in particular. But why would such a person say "ui" 
right NOW as opposed to at some other time or constantly? There is 
something that is causing him to take sufficient notice of his feelings to 
verbalize them.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org