Subject: Re: [lojban] Uses of Language

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 13:19:29 EDT

In a message dated 7/6/2001 1:16:32 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Consider these three sentences:
> 
> 1) ma ti gasnu
> Who did this?
> 
> 2) ko mi jungau le du'u makau ti gasnu
> Tell me who did this!
> 
> 3) mi djica le nu do mi jungau le du'u makau ti gasnu
> [mi djica le nu kokau mi jungau le du'u makau ti gasnu]
> I want you to tell me who did this.
> 
> On the surface, (1) is a question, (2) is a command and (3) is
> an assertion, but their _use_ is, leaving aside nuances of tone,
> basically the same. I would say they have the same function
> but different form. Before we do classifications of function,
> I think we should concentrate on the classifications of form.
> Form and function are not isomorphic in Lojban any more than
> in any other language, even though probably someone at some point
> claimed that they were or should be.
> 

Nice! But you have about exhausted the forms: there remain only fragments 
and ejaculations and observatives that I can think of -- and even imperatives 
are not a different *form*; the role is determined by the occurrence of {ko}.
What you have is a nice illustration of an important fact -- that uses are 
hierarchial: question are a type of directive langauge (under each question 
in at least one type of grammar is a request, which can be surfaced as in 
moving from 1 to 2. And every request is a type of performative (indeed 
every sentence uttered has an underlying performative in these grammars). In 
this case, we would expect 4) {mi minde do lenu jungau mi le du'u makau ti 
gasnu} as raising the performative to the surface. Notice, by the way, that 
1, 2, and 4 can only be answered with something in {ai}, {a'i} or {ie} (as I 
understand it anyhow) while 3 can (at the risk of being labelled obtuse) be 
answered {ia}. That is, it can be a simple assertion if function as well as 
form. 

<Question forms in Lojban are probably the easiest to identify,
they are all and only those forms that contain one of the
(unkaued) question words: ma, mo, xu, xo, pei, ji, etc.
They are ususally used to ask questions, but nobody can stop
you from using them for other functions: "would you be kind enough
to pass me the salt?" is a question in form but not in function,
and it would be natural enough to replicate in Lojban. And of
course nobody can stop you from using other forms for the function
normally fullfilled by questions, as in (2) and (3) above.>

Yes we cannot stop circumlocutions of that sort --though I think some 
langauges use them less than others: English less than Spanish, for example, 
if the stuff we read in second year a half-century ago are anything to go on. 
And Lojban, which has quite an array of devices for being polite and the 
like -- the usual reasons given for periphrasis, might not need them at all, 
barring our carry-over habits. Then again, it may use them even more, in 
which case we have to extend our definitions of what form marks what function 
somewhat. My problem is more to be sure we have some device for every 
function, not that we insist that that device be the only one.

<Directive forms are of course all those containing {ko}, but
also, I would say, those marked with e'o, e'u, ei, e'a, also e'e
in my use, and perhaps e'i. I am also tempted to make this a
larger category (volitive?) encompassing a'o, au, ai, a'i (understood
as "trying"). These are all indicators of a situation that may or may
not realize, and with which the speaker is concerned. The listener
is often a priviledged actor in the case of the e-series, thus
the special {ko} form.>

The eV forms come as close to a letter-to-function relation as any. I would 
divide them into directions and permissions and responses (some of which are 
in iV or aV). Your use of {e'e} is interesting, though more a response or a 
permission than a direction -- but they are all in the area of abetting 
someone else's actions.

<It is clear that {da'i} corresponds to the speculative form, but
I'm not quite sure yet how to handle what follows from the
speculation (English "would"). For example:

Suppose you were here. I am here. We would both be here!

The first sentence is marked with {da'i}, the second is a normal
assertion. How do we mark the third? It is not another {da'i}, for
it is not a new assumption, but it shouldn't either be confused
with a normal assertion. Some combination of {da'i} with something
else? Pity {da'ibi'unai} is so long. Perhaps {da'ibi'u} for
"were" and plain {da'i} for "would"?>

I take {da'i} as an offset as in proof structures (a world shift if you like 
that language) and everything after it to a {da'inai} is then "under the 
hypothesis." One of the features of speculation is that it can carry over 
anything from the base world (sorry, it just is so convenient to tlk this way 
-- as long as you don't get serious about it) that is not "obviously altered 
by the hypothesis" (deliberately vague, as we would see in practice). So, 
shifting where you are does not obviously require a shift in where I am and 
thus that can be imported (strictly, in world talk, recognized as true also 
in the shifted world): it might be either "I am here" or "I would still be 
here." That is just my usage, however, and not carved even in water at this 
point. There is something to be said for {da'ibi'u} as well, but, since it 
is longer, I would wait to see whether it is needed.