From jjllambias@hotmail.com Fri Jun 08 17:19:17 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 9 Jun 2001 00:19:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 96099 invoked from network); 9 Jun 2001 00:19:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 9 Jun 2001 00:19:15 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.83) by mta2 with SMTP; 9 Jun 2001 00:19:14 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Fri, 8 Jun 2001 17:19:14 -0700 Received: from 200.69.11.73 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Sat, 09 Jun 2001 00:19:14 GMT X-Originating-IP: [200.69.11.73] To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Bcc: Subject: An approach to attitudinals Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 00:19:14 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 09 Jun 2001 00:19:14.0469 (UTC) FILETIME=[D069FD50:01C0F079] From: "Jorge Llambias" It is clear that atitudinals are not used to make claims. If I say "ui" I am not claiming that I am happy, I am simply showing you that I am happy. A big smile might accomplish the same thing. They are not claims. But that in no way means that I can remove the attitudinals from a bridi and that what is left is something that I am asserting. Sometimes this is how it works, sometimes it isn't. For example, in {ui la djan pu klama le zarci} I am claiming that John went to the market, and I am expressing happiness about that fact. But in {a'o la djan pu klama le zarci} I am not claiming that John went to the market. I can't hope for something that I know is true, {a'o} requires that I don't know that the statement is true, and also that I don't know it to be false either. If the bridi is to be taken as a claim, it is not about the actual world but about the world as I want it to be, a world that has to be compatible with what I know of the real world. On the other hand, {mi pacna le nu la djan klama le zarci} is a claim about the real world. {au} is more permissive than {a'o}. Again the statement can't be known to be true, you can't wish for something you already have! But in this case it _can_ be known to be false, because you can wish things were different than what they in fact are: {au la djan pu klama le zarci} "I wish John had gone to the market". In this case it is suggested (if not actually claimed) that John did not go to the market, for if I didn't know whether or not he went I could have used {a'o} instead of {au}. To make the actual claim I would have to say {oi la djan na pu klama le zarci}. So, some attitudinals do not remove the assertiveness of the bridi which they adorn: ui, ua, ue, u'e, u'i, ia, ie, ii, oi, o'i, o'a are all in this category. Some attitudinals require that the speaker doesn't know the bridi to be true: a'o, au, ai, ei, e'o, e'u, e'e, e'a are all in this category. In these cases, the bridi is not a claim about the real world. It is rather a claim about the speaker's inernal world, and the speaker must necessarily not know that the claim be true of the real world. For some attitudinals, I am not quite sure about their meaning yet, so I can't tell which category they belong to. mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.