Subject: Re: [lojban] An approach to attitudinals

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 14:09:27 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:

> At 05:05 PM 06/12/2001 -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> >Here's an extension that I think I like:
> >
> >1. In a sentence by itself, UI is a bare emotion.
> >2. At the front of a sentence, UI modifies the assertive nature of the
> >whole bridi.
> >3. After a particular sumti, UI modifies the assertive nature of the
> >element, but leaves the assertive nature of the bridi alone.
> >4. After the brivla, UI does not modify the assertive nature at all.
> >
> >Note that #2 contravenes the book.
>
> This ignores other places that a UI can appear.
>
> The correct generalization is that UI reflects the speaker's attitude when
> contemplating that element of language that the UI attaches to, with the
> scope of the attitudinal determined by the scope of the language
> element. At the beginning of the sentence, attached to ".i" the scope is
> the entire sentence and the speaker is reacting to that sentence (but if
> attached to ni'o refers to an entire paragraph). At the end of a sentence,
> attached to a final vau, the scope is the same. In a sentence by itself
> within a longer text stream, the expression is "point in time" and doesn't
> associate with any particular bit of text, but thus in effect ambiguously
> refers to any or all preceding text and/or all following text assuming that
> one or the other is stimulating the emotive response.

Is there really a difference between attaching it to selbri and attaching
it to .i? I wonder if anyone can have a feeling about the selbri but not
about the sumti.

do klama .ui fu le karce
You go by car, and the going makes me happy.

do klama fu le karce vau .ui
.i ui do klama fu le karce (pre-proposal usage)
You go by car, and that makes me happy.

And since attachment to .i and selbri is the same (?) the .i usage is free
for us to apply the propositional attitude action.

> I see no reason for this "modifying the assertive nature" language. What
> seems to be the case is that it is pragmatics and not grammar that
> determines whether an attitudinal has propositional effect, with the
> pragmatics being specific to the particular emotion and when/how it is
> usually felt; I think we should leave it at that.

Meaning, a new rule for each cmavo?

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