Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Rabbity Sand-Laugher

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 19:39:34 EDT

In a message dated 6/5/2001 4:57:56 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Now pc, >you< were (one of?) the earliest to note that attitudinals might 
> change an apparent assertion into something else; I recall mention of 
> possible worlds and the like. The following of the bridi with "ianai" 
> clearly makes the statement NOT an assertion (or rather renders a valid 
> translation as "Translating Alice is evil, NOT!"
> 

And the Book contains a nice separation between such world-creating 
attitudinals and the purely emotive ones that respond to claims: {a'u}, and 
{u'e} and {ianai} in the sense incredulity all clearly belong to the latter 
set, though the Book at this point is inconsistent with itself, since it 
seems to imply that even {ui} has a truth value and then extends that to some 
of these others.  
If the statement is not an assertion, what is it? Is anything asserted in 
the passage in question? If nothing is asserted than what is the point of 
the (very strange) evidential, which should be a side (assertion, comment, 
warning label?) that the assertion is based on the cited evidence, but here 
there is no evidence that was available to the speaker to cite, someone 
else's assumed opinion is not a case of the speaker knowing his own mind. 
[Quite by the way, that whole passage at the beginning of 13.11 is in 
terrible shape, logically, historically, and semantic-pragmatically, but 
we'll work with what we've got.]

<I encourage xod to continue exploring attitudinals.  No one will learn them 
if they are not used, and they are potentially one of the strongest features 
of the language.>
Well, I am not sure how strong they are, but they are certainly different and 
are largely unexplored territory. So, yes, explore away. But start by 
noticing the difference between {ui la djan. klama} and {mi gleki lenu la 
djan. klama}.

<pc who sets a worthy example in 
trying to read what xod writes in Lojban and answering it, even if he reads 
something into what xod writes other than what xod intended>
But not reading in, reading out what he said, whatever he intended. Not my 
fault he is an anti-Horton sometimes.