Subject: Re: [lojban] Are attitudinals assertions? (was: Attitudinals again (was: Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 01:48:21

la daniel di'e cusku

>Thank you, Anthony, thank you.

I haven't received Anthony's post yet, but I agree with everything
you quoted from him.

>Since you basically said it all in the text quoted above, this is
>probably where I should stop, but being foolish and in the need to
>rant, I will first pick apart a few contributions of la xorxes

i ki'esai ui zo'o

>- not
>because I dislike him or what he said more than anyone elses
>contributions to this thread,

I will assume your "not because" is non-assertive! :)

> > a'o mi caca'a klama
>
>He states that he is going. He also expresses a feeling of hope,
>which probably is connected to his going, what exactly that
>connection is, is not made clear.

That's not how {a'o} is used. It is used as in the example
in the book (pg. 302) {a'o mi kanryze'a ca le bavlamdei},
to express hope that the indicated proposition is true.

>ui mi klama
>says that I come, while a'o mi klama says that I merely hope to?

Correct.

>Isn't that a little on the contradictory side of things?

Nope. Some attitudinals don't affect assertiveness, others do.
That is general for all indicators, some affect assertiveness,
others don't.

>Attitudinals express attitudes, if you want to assert anything,
>that's what bridi are there for.

Right. You can only assert a bridi, but you can also use a bridi
for other purposes besides assertions. You can use them to ask
questions, to make suggestions, to express intentions and so on,
none of which involve making assertions. The attitudinal is never
asserted, but it sometimes indicates that the bridi is being used
for something other than an assertion.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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