Subject: Re: [lojban] Tentative summary on Attitudinals

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 12:18:22 EDT

In a message dated 7/1/2001 10:25:55 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> I'm not sure that there are any other attitudinals which would need to have a
> different grammatical effect based on whether they're in a subclause ({xu}
> would only serve to emphasize what you're asking about, for example). This 
> is
> why I think the "possible world" word should not be a UI.
> 

That is, of course, one part of several proposals -- even if most UI have 
only marginally different effects. So, under these suggestions, {da'i} dould 
still be used. Of course, I am not yet convinced that you need {da'i} in the 
sentence as opposed to {se sruma} or some such thing: is it really being 
posited on the spot (not by you, so {da'idai}) or are you merely reporting 
that someone posited it? In either case, more work needs to be done, clearly.

In a message dated 7/2/2001 7:50:01 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> . For example, although "I am happy
> that P" entails P, ".ui P" means "P makes me happy" or "I'm happy, thanks to
> P", where P is not necessarily the case. Something like ".ui ju'a P" would
> mean "I'm happy, thanks to P being the case". Note that I'm not denying that
> "a'o P" should mean "Hopefully, P" (as opposed to "P makes me hopeful", 
> though
> I gather from your summary that a'o attached in the appropriate place might
> mean that).
> 
I am not sure that I agree about the interpretation of {ui p}: I take the 
{ui} to be an imediate response to the present p, not a generalization or 
other form of projection, and I take that as being relatively clear in the 
book. Now, inserting the {ui} somewhere inside or at the end of p has been 
suggested as a way changing this force to something like what you suggest 
(among other things) but that is still in the proposal stage.

<Ideally, I'd like to see a careful separation between attitudes to/emotions
about a proposition, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, indications
of whether P (or even not-P) is being asserted. Hoping, for example, seems
to be made up of "P is desirable" and "I am not asserting that P is the
case" (or perhaps something stronger like "I am asserting that I do not
know that P is the case"). But one could have the assertives on their own
without the attitude indicators, and one could combine desidertation with
assertions ("P is desirable and is the case") and nonassertions (e.g.
"mmm! me a millionaire" = "p is desirable (& may or may not be the case)").
Perhaps, then, a'o could be seen as shorthand for "ui ju'anai" or similar.>

Again, while something like your unpacking of "hope" or {a'o} has been 
suggested, it has been countered by a number of cases of thinks hoped for but 
not pleasure generating and conversely. It is so far only a hypotheses that 
all (or any) of the projecting forms can be analyzed in this way (or that all 
or any of the 'simple emotions' have projective versions). 

<Has agreement been reached about the grammar of (3), though? That seems to
be the key thing.>

My 3)? Well, the Book sets it up one way, but there are proposals to change 
it, specifically to show whether the sentence is asserted or not.