Subject: Re: [lojban] An approach to attitudinals

From: Richard Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 18:08:03 -0500

Jorge Llambias wrote:
> 
> la ritcrd cusku di'e
> 
> >What is the justification for {a'o} affecting the assertive force of a
> >bridi, while {ui} does not?
> 
> The main one I can think of is that you can't assert as true what
> you hope to be true. You can say that something turned out to be
> as you _hoped_, but not that you are hoping for it to be and at
> the same time you know that it is.

In english it shounds funny. I've convinced myself that it makes a kind
of sense, but I admit I could be fooling myself.

> >With a suffix, there's still context involved, but at least you know up
> >front whether the speaker is asserting a true statement. This could go
> >a long way towards clarity.
> 
> Yes, but suffixes are expensive in terms of usability. I don't want
> to have to use an affix every time I use an attitudinal, it takes
> away the best thing that attitudinals have going for them: their
> very compact form for the great amount of meaning that they add.

I'd exchange an extra syllable for clarity any day. If they were being
formulated now, such that we could say something like ``attitudinals
that start with a and e act under these rules, etc'' then I'd be all for
it. Putting them all in categories now means having to learn them on a
case-by-case basis.

> Right. And what is the non-propositional sense of {ai}?
> "I'm feeling intentuous today"?

It means ``{intent!} in an unspecified relationship with the true
assertion that ...'' For these (out of context) I'm still buying into
the {.ai mi klama} = {I go, which is consistent with my intent} idea. 
Again, I may be fooling myself. {.aiSFX} would be {I intend to go (but
haven't and may not)}.

Why do I think that's better? I think this maximizes the chance that
the listener understands what I'm trying to say. It lets them know
something fundamental about the sentence (specifically, whether I'm
still asserting that it's true or not).

Whether or not the listener knows what {e'e} or {ai} means, they know
that without SFX, there is a true assertion involved. So regardless of
whether they can tell if I'm happy about it, or intended to do it, they
know that {.ai mi klama} involves the true statment {mi klama} is
involved. 

This is the same thing I like about tanru. If I don't know what {cadzu}
means, I can't tell exactly what {cadzu klama} is all about, but I do at
least know that it still has something to do with {x1 goes to x2 from x3
etc.}. Or what if I remember wrong and think {cadzu}={Jogging}? I
still get the point, just a bit wrong. The meaning of the sentence
degrades gracefully as I misinterpret it.

Not knowing whether an attitudinal leaves an assertion alone or turns it
upside-down means you need to know a lot about that attitudinal to get
the sentence's meaning.

The attitudinal placement idea solves the same problem IMO opinion,
which is why I think it would be a fine way to go as well.

Richard