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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 08:41:46 EDT

In a message dated 6/6/2001 1:11:24 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> I think, but am not checking at present, that the Book in fact does NOT 
> separate attitudinals into two classes, because you and I could not do so 
> and stick to said classification over time. Rather the world-creating 
> nature of an attitudinal is scalar. bridi, regardless of the attitudinals 
> attached thereto, have a truth value, but the meaningfulness of that truth 
> value is at question given a more world-creating attitudinal.
> 

Well, the book does separate them and then says that the separation is fuzzy 
(= scalar?). I thought that we finally figured out that we meant different 
things when we talked of world-creation and that we sorted the confusion out. 
But I see that the Book goes along (not too surprisingly) with what I 
remember as your view, namely that truth values need not be connected with 
the common world but may relate to the internal world of the speaker and the 
variation therefore is dependent on how close touch tht world has with 
"reality." As I recall, my line was that world-creating (I'm not sure that 
was the terminolgoy back then, but it is a good phrase) involved seeking to 
bring about or at least envision a change in reality. Thus, for example, 
permission, obligation, request, sugggestion, hope and desire were 
world-creating, happiness and surprise were not. Perhaps the general notion 
was of foreward looking as opposed to present or past oriented -- but I don't 
think that was quite the whole story. I will try to dig up some more.

<In the case of ianai, attitudinally I do not see much difference between 
"incredulity" and what we express in English "NOT!", which I guess is 
"denial". Though we would tend to use the latter to actually make the 
opposite claim (which might better be conveyed using "naku" at the end 
rather than "ianai").>
If we went by the rules, xod's {ianai} would strictly modify only {palci}; is 
it modifies yhe whole bridi then that bridi is asserted on the evidence of 
someone else's opinion or else what is asserted is that it is someone else's 
opinion, in which case disbelief is an inappropriate reaction, since it 1) 
pretty clearly (to the speaker) *is* someone else's opinion and 2) such 
opinions are "indisputable" (one of the worst pieces in that particularly bad 
section). You can't have it both ways: choose one interpretation for half 
the point and the other for the other. (Well, apparently you can, since you 
just did, but it ain't proper behavior in any language and particularly in a 
"logical" one).

<I think that xod was trying to say that his empathy picked up that bridi as 
being your opinion.  I would therefore say that any evidential with dai is 
going to make the bridi NOT an assertion on the part of the speaker, but 
rather something perceived as being an assertion on the part of someone 
else (which in my mind makes the whole sentence more or less 
attitudinal).  In that case, attitudinals NOT labelled with dai are the 
speaker's attitudes>

I think that was what xod was trying to say too and I think he missed it. He 
wanted to say "pc opines that translating Alice is evil![repulsion, 
amazement] but I don't believe it is;" what he said was roughly "I am 
repulsed and amazed and incredulous that translating Alice is evil, as pc 
opines." The latter, but not the former, entails that translating Alice is 
evil. 
It appears that what is wanted is, as you say in the next (or previous), a 
three-way distinction: a reference to emotion and event that hinges truth 
fnctionally only on the event (what I take the present emotionals to be),  
one that hinges on the attitude so long as it is focused on the event, 
whether or not it occurs, and one that somehow takes both into account. IF 
the emotionals are of the first sort, we can do the others easily, if the 
emotionals are already of one of the other sorts, then we cannot recover that 
character at all from the remaining types.  

<But I think that there remains a THREE WAY distinction, with two of the 
three being usually semantically ambiguous in Lojban (I think some of the 
discursives actually disambiguate between world-creation and propositional 
expression - certainly the non-dai observatives are propositional and 
especially the observative of assertion).

I don't think that "ui" "It makes me happy that" is quite the same as "mi 
gleki lenu ...".  The latter is tenseless (and hence could be other than a 
present emotion, whereas "ui" always is taken at the point of expression), 
and is truth conditional with regards to the happiness and not the thing 
one is happy about.>

OK, {mi ca gleki lenu...}. I am not sure what the three are, unless as 
above, nor which two are usually ambiguous in Lojban (and why they should 
be). You add an fourth possibility, "John's coming makes me happy," which 
looks like a simple causal statement, a factor not mentioned in earlier 
discussions but implicit, I suppose, in the emotionals being responses to 
situations being described. It can be fit perfectly easily -- if emotionals 
do not affect truth value.

<I don't think it is.  There isn't enough attitudinal usage in TLI Loglanto 
know how "ui" really works.>

I only spoke of Loglan up to 1984, after that God knows what happened when 
JCB ran totally unchecked. I agree there was little use, but misuse was 
severely chastised.

<I think "waffle" is overgenerous and I suggest that we
>have again fallen for the lowest common denominator.

I don't think so.  I think we have so many possibilities that have yet to 
be explored with the attitudinals, and no one will discover there are 
problems until they have to deal with misunderstandings like this one.  The 
common denominator will be raised when more people have explored the 
alternatives.>

Or we will all be pulled down to the bottom of the scale as misuse becomes 
enshrined as usage and we end up speaking English with funny words (and the 
English of the bottom tail of the curve at that).