Subject: Re: [lojban] If it ain't broke, don't fix it (was an approach to attitudinals)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 14:53:03 -0400

At 06:35 PM 06/13/2001 -0500, Richard Todd wrote:
>Craig wrote:
> > When was the last time anyone was misunderstood about it?
>
>Recently, I think (though not specifically about {a'o}). I don't want
>to get into a meta-argument about when this argument really started, so
>if you don't agree I'll say in advance that it's fine with me.
>
>I thought this really started when pycn's reading of one of xod's
>sentences was the exact opposite of xod's intended meaning. The essence
>of the misunderstanding was whether pycn was correct to assume that
>xod's sentence was an assertion. (I'm not saying that pycn made a
>mistake reading the sentence--the fact that both sides had merit, IMO,
>is why a convention would be such a good thing)

I agree that this was where the discussion started. But what caused the 
misunderstanding was in part the fact the xod had used multiple 
attitudinals in different parts of the sentence. The fact that some were 
marked with dai does not change the fact that they were all attitudinals, 
and their interaction was confusing. At least two people apparently DID 
understand xod the way he intended, and not the way pc interpreted it, and 
I think pc eventually admitted having missed something, so the pragmatics 
was probably sufficient to resolve the issue without any conventions. But 
in any event the conventions being discussed now would not have helped with 
xod's expression with multiply-interacting attitudinals that seemed to 
contradict.

While people DID understand xod, he could probably have stated things more 
clearly so as to not imply assertions or attitudes that were not 
intended. Indeed, I think in live conversation (where attitudinals are 
most likely to be used communicatively rather than analytically), I don't 
think he would have phrased it in the way he did.

Had the Book (which I don't own yet, so I'm going by others' statements)
>been consistent with itself about attitudinals, I doubt the conversation
>would have gone so far.

The book doesn't cover all possible situations regarding attitudinals, may 
not have any situations with multiple attitudinals in different parts of 
the sentence, and certainly not interactions between dai attitudinals in 
one place and non-dai attitudinals in another place.

>But since the claim has been made that _no_
>usage is completely consistent with the Book, it doesn't seem too
>blasphemous to set a standard that is consistent, (mostly) compatible,
>and simple.

The book describes pragmatic considerations which are not unambiguous and 
indeed sometimes conflict. Attitudinals are orthogonal to the rest of the 
grammar and there will probably and perhaps necessarily be cases that make 
little sense and others that seem to conflict with the grammar.

>Here is the text of the mail with the misunderstanding I'm referring to:
>
>----------
>Well, I did not in fact claim that: I said I would probably have (given
>the
>choices between "foolish" and "evil" for two events) reversed xod's
>choices.
>Happily ther were other choices and I made those. And xod does indeed
>*assert* that translating Alice is evil. xod also *expresses* a number
>of
>emotional responses to that claim, some of them apparently at variance
>with
>the claim made -- though they might be merely shock at finding oneself
>making such a claim. I am still unsure what empathetic opining is --xod
>got
>so into my head that agreement resulted? The sentence in question is <
>.a'unaicai pe'idai le nu fanva la .alis. cu palci .ianai .u'e > in which
>the
>only assertion is < le nu fanva la .alis. cu palci >; the rest is
>emotive
>response. I suspect xod meant the assertion to be in quotes or some of
>the
>emotive expressions to be assertions to the effect that xod reesponded
>thus
>to my assertion that... But what is written is written, and I refuse to
>be
>blamed for taking people at their word.

And indeed MERELY if the assertion had been in quotes (or maybe a si'o 
abstraction would have been even better), I think there would have been no 
misunderstanding. But pc focused on the bridi first whereas others who 
understood what was intended focused on the attitudinals and in particular 
on the dai, and thus understood it as being a "quote" rather than an 
assertion.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org