Subject: Re: [lojban] dai harder (was: If it ain't broke, don't fix it (was: an approa...

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 10:45:46 -0400

At 10:57 PM 06/18/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>la pycyn di'e cusku
>
> > > la frank na djuno le du'u xukau la meris klama ti
> > > la frank facki le du'u uikau la meris klama ti
> >
> >Because there is no indirect question here, only "indirect emotion" (bad
> >phrase).
>
>I know there is no indirect question, that's why I said
>"indirect indicators". These type of indicators can appear only
>in subordinate clauses, as far as I can tell, which puts them
>in the same class with indirect questions. And the function of
>{kau} is the same: it changes the direct effect of the indicator
>to the equivalent effect in the subordinate context. Some more
>experiments:
>
>la frank jinvi le du'u eikau la meris ti klama
>"Frank thinks that Mary should come."
>
>la frank jdice le du'u eipeikau la meris ti klama
>"Frank decides whether Mary should come."
>
>la frank jinvi le du'u la'akau la meris ti klama
>"Frank thinks that Mary is probably coming."
>
>la frank jinvi le du'u ku'ikau la meris ti klama
>"Frank thinks that Mary, however, is coming."

malrarna

The problems with these (or at least the first one) is that they subvert 
the expressive nature of UI attitudes by incorporating them in an 
analytical structure that conflicts with that expressive nature. In the 
above examples, we are not thinking of the attitudinals in terms of their 
expressive nature, but rather as codes for the emotions that they 
express. We could do this more honestly with

la frank cinmo lu'e zo ei le du'u la meris ti klama

Frank does not "think" or "opine" emotions. Frank emotes them.

The other examples similarly seem to be short forms of some other more 
clear predication where the UI word becomes the main predicate of the du'u 
clause, such as

la frank jinvi le du'u lakne fa lenu la meris ti klama

I can't come up with an alternative to the ku'i example because I don't 
understand it even in English. By the pattern of the Lojban sentences, the 
ku'ikau would require that the contrast be something that Frank was 
opining, and we don't have any clue as to the contrast. The English 
requires a contrast that WE are recognizing, without reference to what 
Frank thinks. This can be seen by adding context: "John told me that he 
couldn't come, but Frank thinks that Mary, however, is coming." There is 
no requirement in my sentence that Frank even know who John is - it is the 
speaker that is contrasting John and Mary. I don't think that there is a 
way in English to unambiguously and yet briefly put the contrast in 
Frank's mind. We have to pretty much explicitly predicate the contrast as 
"Frank thought that, in contrast to John, Mary is coming.

>The advantage of using {kau} for this is that it leaves {dai}
>for the function of the attitude attributed to the audience,
>which is not a subordinate clause thing:
>
>oidai le cukta na ciksi fo la'e di'u
>"The book does not explain it like that, you complain."

Philosophically, this doesn't match the rest of the attitudinal system. In 
proposing dai, we recognized that the only way to really say how someone 
feels is if they express it themselves or if we pick it up empathically. It 
doesn't matter who we are empathizing the emotion from, the use of the 
attitudinal means that WE are the ones expressing and therefore feeling the 
emotion, the dai indicating the reason why we are doing so is that we are 
momentarily at least putting ourselves in someone else's shoes. By the 
nature of attitudinals, it is improper to emote for someone else any other 
way, and we should not be using attitudinals for any other purpose than 
emoting.

You similarly cannot use the few English attitudinals (Eek!, Whee!) in 
predicative claims, barring the slang usage of "making whoopee" in which 
the attitudinal has had a change of meaning.

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