Subject: Re: [lojban] An approach to attitudinals

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 00:41:59

la ritcrd cusku di'e

>I'd exchange an extra syllable for clarity any day.

At this point, one syllable is not an option. There are only
a few two syllable cmavo remaining unassigned.

>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.

There is a very strong such connection for e-attitudinals (excepting
perhaps {e'i}, which I don't know what it means). In any case, we have
to work with what we have at this point.

>Putting them all in categories now means having to learn them on a
>case-by-case basis.

Not necessarily, maybe they can be made to work all by the same rule.
What I don't want is to set the rule first without analyzing more than
two or three examples. And especially trying not to break what is
already working.

>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).

You're definitely not asserting it with {xu}. I don't see why it would
be harder to understand that with other attitudinals.

>Whether or not the listener knows what {e'e} or {ai} means, they know
>that without SFX, there is a true assertion involved.

We should think of how the language works best for people once they
already know the language, not while they are learning. If you think
the listener won't understand what {e'e} ot {ai} means, it is better
not to use them at all.

>This is the same thing I like about tanru.

It is different in the sense that you can't expect to understand
anything if you don't know the meaning of cmavo. Brivla are an open
class and you can't possibly know all of them, but cmavo are very
few and someone who speaks the language to a reasonable degree should
know them all. (I mean the ones that are effectively used, of course.)

>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.

I need to know just the meaning of the attitudinal. I probably would
not understand a sentence with {e'i} for example.

>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.

Maybe it is, I haven't had time yet to look at how it would work
for more than the couple of examples presented. Would it apply
to {xu} as well, for example?

In any case, the main use of attitudinals, at least in my case, is
at the start of the sentence, so I would have less objections to
those more strange (to me) interpretations in other positions.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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