{.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

[Gleki Arxokuna]

If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there is no gismu for "intention"?

Just {zukte djica}? Just a metaphorical tanru? Or a lujvo again derived from {djica}?

And why such a huge bias in favor of cmavo and not predicates in a predicate language?

[selpa'i]

.ai = zukte
Someone does something (zukte2) for some purpose (zukte3), all of which is intentional.
The purpose (zukte3) of action z2 is what their intention is in doing zukte2.  (Wow, that is horribly phrased.)
Maybe an example will be helpful.

.ai mi na za'u re'u citka lo rectu
~=
mi zukte fi lo nu na ze'u re'u citka lo rectu

You could ask what the zukte2 would be in such cases. I think, often zukte2 and zukte3 can be identical. The action is also the intention, that is, the action is 'intentional'.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

-- 
pilno zo le xu .i lo dei bangu cu se cmene zo lojbo .e nai zo lejbo

[Gleki Arxokuna]

On Friday, August 10, 2012 7:37:11 PM UTC+4, selpa'i wrote:

Am 10.08.2012 16:54, schrieb Gleki Arxokuna:

If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there is no gismu for "intention"?

Just {zukte djica}? Just a metaphorical tanru? Or a lujvo again derived from {djica}?

And why such a huge bias in favor of cmavo and not predicates in a predicate language?

.ai = zukte
Someone does something (zukte2) for some purpose (zukte3), all of which is intentional.
The purpose (zukte3) of action z2 is what their intention is in doing zukte2.  (Wow, that is horribly phrased.)

{zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It should be clarified, that is changed.

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there
> is no gismu for "intention"?

The intended gismu corresponding to intention was "platu", or perhaps
some compound thereof. I'll accept the possible use of zukte proposed
by someone else, though I think intention need not be purposive either.

> {zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It should be clarified, that is changed.

The gismu list is baselined. We haven't allowed changes merely for
clarity for nearly 20 years.

But in point of fact, there is some indication in the list associating
zukte with intention - see the note on the definition of lifri for example.

> Just {zukte djica}?

Intention is entirely orthogonal to desire, IMNSHO

Another possibility for intention would be nalsnuti, but I'm not sure
that would cover the full range of the attitudinal of intention.

Just a metaphorical tanru?

It isn't, but if it were, so what? When we started the project, there
was certainly no stigma attached to metaphorical interpretations.
Indeed, some of the gismu are explicitly defined with metaphorical use
in mind (e.g. the mention of protrusion for nazbi). Such use of
metaphor has sometimes been deprecated by the community, but we thought
it far preferable to a significantly larger gismu list or more extensive
borrowing of words from other languages.

> Or a lujvo again derived from {djica}?

We would of course have used a lujvo made from the metaphoric tanru, if
the concept had been based on such a metaphor.

> And why such a huge bias in favor of cmavo and not predicates in a

> *predicate language*?

What bias? There are over 1300 gismu, and far fewer cmavo.

If you refer to the attitudinals and other members of UI and the lack of
explicit ties to gismu, please remember that the attitudinal system was
redesigned and greatly expanded *after* the rest of the language was
essentially complete, in 1989-1990. JCB's original set of attitudinals
allowed for only a dozen or two possible expressions. I had expanded
this to around three dozen with intensity markers, but people kept
finding holes.

My priority thus was in defining an attitudinal system that worked, and
that could cover the entire range of emotions expressed in any and all
human languages, as well as (insofar as possible) nonverbal expressions
of emotion/attitude as well, and then to go beyond that to ones that
someone might WANT to express if the language allowed it.

Once it was done, we had little clue how to define some of the concepts
and distinctions clearly in any language, much less Lojban (and not
within the confines of the fixed length LogFlash definition field which
was the then-standard limitation on definitions). (The difficulty in
defining cmavo is why there was no dictionary published in the early
1990s, and why CLL was written as a necessary prerequisite to any
dictionary effort - until we clearly defined the selma'o, the word
definitions were too difficult a problem.)

By the time the attitudinal revision was complete and accepted, the
gismu list was complete, and preliminarily baselined; we required votes
at LogFest for any additions, and there was strong resistance to adding
to the set of gismu (and indeed some gismu were deleted in such votes; I
still remain fond of gumri = mushroom). But this wasn't seen as a bias
against "predicates", but rather as a strong bias in favor of
compounding over adding primitive roots in growing the lexicon. The
attitudinal system itself reflected that bias, in that a huge number of
attitudes were designed to be expressed by compound cmavo (indicating
intensity as well as opposition and the thoroughly original/untested
social/mental/emotional/physical/sexual (and later-added spiritual)
modifiers.

There wasn't any real after-the-fact attempt to match attitudinals and
gismu beyond a vague attempt to be sure that all of the attitudinals
could be somehow expressed as compounds or whatever. And indeed, doing
so might have been problematic, because the oppositions expressed in the
attitudinal system (using nai) wouldn't necessarily represented by
nal+gismu (e.g. a'enai e'inai), and we couldn't have made the
attitudinal system as comprehensive using as few cmavo, if we had been
so constrained.


lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

[Gleki Arxokuna]

On Friday, August 10, 2012 11:07:53 PM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:

Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there
> is no gismu for "intention"?

The intended gismu corresponding to intention was "platu", or perhaps
some compound thereof.  I'll accept the possible use of zukte proposed
by someone else, though I think intention need not be purposive either.

> {zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It should be clarified, that is changed.

The gismu list is baselined. We haven't allowed changes merely for
clarity for nearly 20 years.

Here is the lack of clarity, actually. If there is no equivalent of {.ai} in gismu space we must create it.

If it's {zukte} then we must clarify it's real meaning.

The question is pretty straightforward: How do I say "I intend ..." not using {.ai} and having in mind it's clean meaning with no extra implications?

[John E Clifford]

The talk of a gismu equivalent of {ai}suggests that there is something centrally wrong here.  A gismu is a truth function, {ai} is a performative operator.  Never the twain shall meet.  If some one says {ai mi klama} he is expressing an intention to go and thereby committing himself and those around him to various things (minimally, that he try to go and that involves certain sorts of preparations, etc.).  But, if he fails to go, what he said is not false -- not even if he did not actually have the intention to go when he said it (it is dishonest in a different way) (It is also no true if he does go, whether or not he did so intentionally.).  Notice, however, that, taking {brodu} as "x1 intends to do x2 (action)/ does x2 intentionally" (I'm not actually sure these are the same, but never mind for now), if he says {mi brodu le nu mi klama} and did not really intend to go, the sentence is false, even if he did in fact go. We want to be able to describe what someone is doing when he says {ai}, but there is no description that does what {ai} does.

---

From: Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 3:13 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

social/mental/emotional/ physical/sexual (and later-added spiritual)

modifiers.

There wasn't any real after-the-fact attempt to match attitudinals and
gismu beyond a vague attempt to be sure that all of the attitudinals
could be somehow expressed as compounds or whatever.  And indeed, doing
so might have been problematic, because the oppositions expressed in the
attitudinal system (using nai) wouldn't necessarily represented by
nal+gismu (e.g. a'enai e'inai), and we couldn't have made the
attitudinal system as comprehensive using as few cmavo, if we had been
so constrained.


lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier    loj...@lojban.org    www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

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[Jorge Llambías]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 1:13 PM, John E Clifford <kali9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> If some one says {ai mi klama} he is
> expressing an intention to go and thereby committing himself and those
> around him to various things (minimally, that he try to go and that involves
> certain sorts of preparations, etc.).

Is he really? I would have said expressing an intention does not
create any commitment, just like expressing pain or happiness doesn't
create any commitment. It seems to me that expressing an intention
just exposes one's current mental stance with regards to the taking of
some action. One can later change one's mind for whatever reason and
the prior expression of intention shouldn't be affected. A different
case is the making of a promise, which does get broken if the promised
action is not carried out. If you express an intention to do
something, others can to some extent expect that you will do it, but
if it turns out you don't end up doing it they can't really
recriminate you, can they? They can ask about it but "I later changed
my mind" is the only explanation you need to give, and by doing that
you don't make the original expression any less genuine.

> Notice, however,
> that, taking {brodu} as "x1 intends to do x2 (action)/ does x2
> intentionally" (I'm not actually sure these are the same, but never mind for
> now),

They are rather different though: you may intend to do something and
yet never actually end up doing it, while if you do something
intentionally you obviously do do it. "Do intentionally" is do +
intend, "intend" is just intend. That's why "zukte" doesn't really
work for intend, which only describes a mental state.

> if he says {mi brodu le nu mi klama} and did not really intend to go,
> the sentence is false, even if he did in fact go.

Right, intention is about the mental stance towards the action, not
about carrying it out.

> We want to be able to
> describe what someone is doing when he says {ai}, but there is no
> description that does what {ai} does.

At least no claim or assertion can do it, but you can use a
proposition for other purposes than making claims. "ca'e" is supposed
to mark a sentence as a performative (despite its gloss), so if you
say "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi brodu lo nu klama"; "I hereby express my
intention to go", you are thereby expressing an intention to go. So
".ai" could be taken as an abreviated form of "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi
brodu". Similarly for other attitudinals, "ui" is similar to "ca'e mi
jarco lo nu mi gleki", "I hereby display my happiness", and so on.
(The wordy form doesn't quite have the same practical effect though.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

[John E Clifford]

Interesting read on {ca'e}; where does it come from? I would have thought it belonged to rhetoric, not pragmatics; a move to stipulate a meaning for a contentious term in order to get on to substantive issues.  Or to introduce a new term altogether to develop a novel theory.  The "Believe or not, what I am now doing is showing intention to do x" reading seems to me not much in keeping with the given definition or the whirl of words (admittedly not very coherent) around the word {ca'e} in other contexts.  It also seems strangely propositional (with which you can't do much but make a claim -- your example does seem to be an assertion with {ca'e} calling attention to it). 

I agree that {zukte}, as it stands, does little for intentionally, but, as you note, that has little to do with intending to do something.  I'm not sure (and philosophers as a group aren't either, never mind individuals with very definite ideas) just what is needed, as, perhaps, for a modifier "intentionally" left otherwise undefined.

---

From: Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 5:52 PM

Subject: Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

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[Jorge Llambías]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 8:49 PM, John E Clifford <kali9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Interesting read on {ca'e}; where does it come from?

CLL:
<<
A bridi marked by “ca'e” is true because the speaker says so. In
addition to definitions of words, “ca'e” is also appropriate in what
are called performatives, where the very act of speaking the words
makes them true. An English example is “I now pronounce you husband
and wife”, where the very act of uttering the words makes the
listeners into husband and wife. A Lojban translation might be:

11.1) ca'e le re do cu simxu speni
[I define!] The two of-you are-mutual spouses.

>>

> I agree that {zukte}, as it stands, does little for intentionally, but, as
> you note, that has little to do with intending to do something. I'm not
> sure (and philosophers as a group aren't either, never mind individuals with
> very definite ideas) just what is needed, as, perhaps, for a modifier
> "intentionally" left otherwise undefined.

I don't really see a problem with using the same word for the stance
one has while performing an action (intentionally) and the stance one
has prior to performing it (intend to). The tense takes care of
distinguishing the two cases, since in one case the intention is
simultaneous with the action and in the other it is prior to it. But
we don't yet have such a gismu in Lojban.

[Mike S.]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:

At least no claim or assertion can do it, but you can use a
proposition for other purposes than making claims. "ca'e" is supposed
to mark a sentence as a performative (despite its gloss), so if you
say "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi brodu lo nu klama"; "I hereby express my
intention to go", you are thereby expressing an intention to go. So
".ai" could be taken as an abreviated form of "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi
brodu". Similarly for other attitudinals, "ui" is similar to "ca'e mi
jarco lo nu mi gleki", "I hereby display my happiness", and so on.
(The wordy form doesn't quite have the same practical effect though.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

I would think that ".ui" simply means "I am happy", not "I display my happiness".  Either way, if the speaker is actually unhappy, I think that we have to admit that he is being disingenuous to his audience if he utters ".ui" with no hint of irony.  Because of this, I think these attitudinals are as truth-functional as any brivla: they evaluate to a real truth value given two arguments: the speaker and the proposition that the attitudinal is embedded in. Obviously it's hard to know if a person is truthful in the expression of his own feelings, but there are sometimes signs, and the truth value of such expressions are still there, however hidden.

Even more so in the case with the irrealis attitudinals.  If I say ".ai [I am giving you a million bucks tomorrow]" when I know that I am bankrupt and all my banking accounts are overdrawn then clearly I am lying to you.  ".ai mi dunda la lunra do" is simply (literally) false when uttered by any non-delusional interlocutor.

[John E Clifford]

No, this misunderstands a basic distinction in Lojban between assertions and the rest and is just wrong for the function of words like {ai} and  {ui}.  There is a difference between being disingenuous and lying and  that appears in the difference between saying {ui} and {mi gleki} when I am not happy: the first may be misleading but is not false (since not an assertion), the second is an assertion and is false.  Mixing the two up, as people have been doing for 55 years in Logjam, is a basic logical mistake and the source of a large number of stupid arguments on the relevant lists (this may be one of them).  The source is, of course, the English habit of not distinguishing the two verbally, one among many of the reasons for designing Logjam.  I am unclear what a truth function that takes a person as an argument might be; typically they take a sentence in a particular frame, which does indeed contain the speaker as a relevant factor (the referent of "I", for example), but not a direct argument.  to be sure, the adequacy condition on a truth function applied to "I am happy" requires that the referent of "I", the speaker, be in the class of happy persons, but that is a another matter.  There is no truth function that takes {ui} as an argument, whether or not there is some function that takes the speaker as an argument.

{ai} is a harder case, because sometimes we rely peoples expressed intentions (not, it seems, on the intention to go, though one can build cases that are as significant as the intetion to give a million).  Not fulfilling those expectations can cause very bad feeling, even, in certain cases, law suits or the like, or violence.  But that does not mean that the expression of the intention was a lie, even if it was misleading.  It may not even be disingenuous, as xorxes points out, being what the speaker intended at the time, before he changed his mind -- or discovered that his fortune had disappeared or ...   Promising to give someone the moon may be over the top or metaphorical, but it isn't false (nor true neither), at most it is insincere and unfulfillable (as of now, at least -- there is a treaty on that isn't there?)  And, there are more ways to deceive than by lying.

---

From: Mike S. <mai...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 9:32 PM

Subject: Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

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[John E Clifford]

I think saying that a bridi marked by {ca'e} is true is a dangerous move to make, though I can the reasoning behind it.  To be sure, after the preacher says "I now pronounce you man and wife" (or whatever -- I like 'simxu speni' and wish we had something as graceful in English), they are mutual spice and they are because he said it and weren't before (actually, I don't know of any system where this is literally true, for all we keep using this example.  In the US, they aren't mutual spice until the paper is signed for state recognized marriages and, for religious-only commitments, they are already and the church merely acknowledges and blesses.  But facts aside, sticking with tradition).  The crucial thing about such a sentence is that the utterance (in proper context, of course) creates a societally determined set of expectations, rights, and duties for the couple and everyone else in the society.  On this version of {ca'e} (which I don't quite see how connected to the last one), the role of the sentence is to specify what sort of cloud of societal norms are generated.  "ca'e You are sentenced to serve 5 - 7 years in the state pen" creates another set.  In the one case, they are mutual spice, in the other, they are sentenced.  But saying the claim is true seems odd.  I think, perhaps, it is the problem of the exact start or end of an event: is the runner running just when he begins, before he has actually taken a stride?  I suspect there are some nasty problems here (and I suspect Austen dealt with some of them and I have forgotten what he said).

---

From: Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 7:10 PM

Subject: Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

[Mike S.]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 11:13 PM, John E Clifford <kali9...@yahoo.com> wrote:

No, this misunderstands a basic distinction in Lojban between assertions and the rest and is just wrong for the function of words like {ai} and  {ui}.  There is a difference between being disingenuous and lying and  that appears in the difference between saying {ui} and {mi gleki} when I am not happy: the first may be misleading but is not false (since not an assertion), the second is an assertion and is false.  Mixing the two up, as people have been doing for 55 years in Logjam, is a basic logical mistake and the source of a large number of stupid arguments on the relevant lists (this may be one of them).  The source is, of course, the English habit of not distinguishing the two verbally, one among many of the reasons for designing Logjam.  I am unclear what a truth function that takes a person as an argument might be; typically they take a sentence in a particular frame, which does indeed contain the speaker as a relevant factor (the referent of "I", for example), but not a direct argument.  to be sure, the adequacy condition on a truth function applied to "I am happy" requires that the referent of "I", the speaker, be in the class of happy persons, but that is a another matter.  There is no truth function that takes {ui} as an argument, whether or not there is some function that takes the speaker as an argument.

{ai} is a harder case, because sometimes we rely peoples expressed intentions (not, it seems, on the intention to go, though one can build cases that are as significant as the intetion to give a million).  Not fulfilling those expectations can cause very bad feeling, even, in certain cases, law suits or the like, or violence.  But that does not mean that the expression of the intention was a lie, even if it was misleading.  It may not even be disingenuous, as xorxes points out, being what the speaker intended at the time, before he changed his mind -- or discovered that his fortune had disappeared or ...   Promising to give someone the moon may be over the top or metaphorical, but it isn't false (nor true neither), at most it is insincere and unfulfillable (as of now, at least -- there is a treaty on that isn't there?)  And, there are more ways to deceive than by lying.

If I am free and officially sanctioned to say "ui" disingenuously i.e. without really being happy, or I can say "ai" without even the slightest conscious real intention (at the time, perhaps speaking a complete lie) of follow-through, then I fear that "ui" and "ai" have no real meaning.  Is this what is wanted?  Consider what politicians would do with these conventions.  Consider what they already do speaking English.

I think the real question I have here regards _meaning_.   You make what I feel is an arbitrary semantic distinction between an assertion and an attitudinal "mode", but I feel without assertion there is no meaning.   If attitudinals don't assert at least a vague albeit real feeling felt by the speaker, what do attitudinals really do?  Earlier, the idea of performatives was raised.  The idea of performatives makes total sense when it comes to a very few constructions, namely the interrogative and imperative moods.  "I ask a question, X" and "I request/command Y" don't have truth values; they just mean "please answer the question" or "do what I request".  But why in a logical language, a predicate-based language, should the semantics of this small set of illocutionary constructions be extended to the inner states of the speaker?  Why _doesn't_ the speaker saying "ui" simply imply that the speaker is really gleki, as a person would intuitively suspect?  What does it really mean otherwise?  What do we gain from that dubious interpretation?

[Gleki Arxokuna]

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 7:13:45 AM UTC+4, clifford wrote:

No, this misunderstands a basic distinction in Lojban between assertions and the rest and is just wrong for the function of words like {ai} and  {ui}.  There is a difference between being disingenuous and lying and  that appears in the difference between saying {ui} and {mi gleki} when I am not happy: the first may be misleading but is not false (since not an assertion), the second is an assertion and is false.  Mixing the two up, as people have been doing for 55 years in Logjam

John, stop calling it Logjam after all! :)

[MorphemeAddict]

"Mutual spice"? Where does that come from? 

stevo

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[iesk]

Le dimanche 12 août 2012 06:26:19 UTC+2, Mike a écrit :
>If I am free and officially sanctioned to say "ui" disingenuously i.e. without really being happy, or I can say "ai" without even the slightest conscious real intention (at the time, perhaps speaking a complete lie) of follow-through, then I fear that "ui" and "ai" >have no real meaning.  Is this what is wanted?  Consider what politicians would do with these conventions.  Consider what they already do speaking English.
>
>I think the real question I have here regards _meaning_.   You make what I feel is an arbitrary semantic distinction between an assertion and an attitudinal "mode", but I feel without assertion there is no meaning.   If attitudinals don't assert at least a >vague albeit real feeling felt by the speaker, what do attitudinals really do? 

ba'e pe'i di'e

You are free and officially sanctioned to fake a smile. Politicians do fake smiles. In spite of all that, a smile usually means something to you (not in a propositional way). However that works, that's how UIs should work.

Whenever human beings smile, we are *usually* entitled to say that they are happy (I’m simplifying, obviously). You are wise to assume that *some* instances of smiling are fake, but you just don't assume that *all* smiles are fake. If you did, you'd probably end up being considered mentally ill or something.

Whenever a Lojban speaker says {.ui}, same thing. It is part of the Lojban Sprachspiel.^^

Whenever I feel like giving in to the temptation of thinking about UIs in terms of truth and falsehood, I remind myself that UIs are essentially like body language, viz. (to the ideal Lojban speaker) they are a natural extension and, if you will, enrichment of it. Verbalised non-verbal communication.

iesk

[Mike S.]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 5:11 AM, MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com> wrote:

"Mutual spice"? Where does that come from? 

stevo

Presumably mouse : mice :: spouse : ?
 

[Jorge Llambías]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 11:32 PM, Mike S. <mai...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> Similarly for other attitudinals, "ui" is similar to "ca'e mi
>> jarco lo nu mi gleki", "I hereby display my happiness", and so on.
>

> I would think that ".ui" simply means "I am happy", not "I display my
> happiness".

"I _hereby_ express my happiness", i.e. "by performing this very
speech act, I am expressing my happiness".

> Either way, if the speaker is actually unhappy, I think that we
> have to admit that he is being disingenuous to his audience if he utters
> ".ui" with no hint of irony.

Certainly.

> Because of this, I think these attitudinals
> are as truth-functional as any brivla: they evaluate to a real truth value
> given two arguments: the speaker and the proposition that the attitudinal is
> embedded in. Obviously it's hard to know if a person is truthful in the
> expression of his own feelings, but there are sometimes signs, and the truth
> value of such expressions are still there, however hidden.

It doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether we want to call them
true/false, honest/dishonest, genuine/fake, felicitous/infelicitous or
whatever. The point of avoiding true/false is that for example you
can't use "na" to convert a fake "ui" into a genuine one, like you can
use it to convert a false statement into a true one, and the same
applies to other truth functional operators like logical connectives.
It does make sense to distinguish between the truth value of a
proposition and the genuinity? genuiness? of an expression.

> Even more so in the case with the irrealis attitudinals. If I say ".ai [I
> am giving you a million bucks tomorrow]" when I know that I am bankrupt and
> all my banking accounts are overdrawn then clearly I am lying to you. ".ai
> mi dunda la lunra do" is simply (literally) false when uttered by any
> non-delusional interlocutor.

lie
noun
1.
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an
intentional untruth; a falsehood.
2.
something intended or serving to convey a false impression; imposture:

A fake expression of intention can certainly count as a lie in sense 2.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 12:36 AM, John E Clifford <kali9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I think saying that a bridi marked by {ca'e} is true is a dangerous move to
> make, though I can the reasoning behind it.

Apparently that's Searle's position on performatives while Austin's is
the one you prefer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance

"John R. Searle argued in his 1989 article How Performatives Work that
performatives are true/false just like constatives. Searle further
claimed that performatives are what he calls declarations; this is a
technical notion of Searle's account: according to his conception, an
utterance is a declaration, if "the successful performance of the
speech act is sufficient to bring about the fit between words and
world, to make the propositional content true." Searle believes that
this double direction of fit contrasts the simple word-to-world fit of
assertives."

> (or whatever -- I like 'simxu speni'
> and wish we had something as graceful in English

I don't find it graceful at all, it makes me want to ask "simxu speni
ma", "mutually married to whom?". It should be either "simxu lo ka
speni" or eventually "speni simxu", but not "simxu speni".)

[John E Clifford]

Thanks for the refresher.  I still feel qualms, but I suspect they are related to the problem with emotives like {ui} rather than to performatives themselves.  That, plus the uncertainty that {ai} has a performative component.  It does set up expectations, as does {ui}, but not the sort of web that true world-creating expressions do.

---

From: Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 10:38 AM

Subject: Re: [lojban] {.au}/{djica}={.ai}/{?}. No gismu for intention

[Robert LeChevalier]

Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> On Friday, August 10, 2012 11:07:53 PM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:
>
> Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> > If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then
> why there
> > is no gismu for "intention"?
>
> The intended gismu corresponding to intention was "platu", or perhaps
> some compound thereof. I'll accept the possible use of zukte proposed
> by someone else, though I think intention need not be purposive either.
>
> > {zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It
> should be clarified, that is changed.
>
> The gismu list is baselined. We haven't allowed changes merely for
> clarity for nearly 20 years.
>
> Here is the lack of clarity, actually. If there is no equivalent of
> {.ai} in gismu space we must create it.

I disagree. It is NOT essential that concepts be expressed in gismu, if
they can be expressed in reasonably short, and possibly metaphorical, lujvo.

One thing I did not mention last post: gismu, and brivla in general,
express claims. Attitudinals do not express claims. The set of claims
that we might express about the world does not match the set of emotions
that we might feel about the world. Yes, it would sometimes be useful
to have words to talk about those emotions, umm, unemotionally. But I
doubt that such analytical discussion of emotions is all that common,
and hence there is no need for short words or expressions to facilitate
such discussion. Indeed, one could probably get by with "cinmo la'ezo
.ai." without need for any word invention at all.

> If it's {zukte}

It isn't.

>then we must clarify it's real meaning.

Emotional expressions do not necessarily have "meaning". If they do, it
isn't entirely clear that what I *mean* in expressing "ai" or "io" or
"iu" is necessarily what you *mean* if you express them.

> The question is pretty straightforward: How do I say "I intend ..." not
> using {.ai}

You most certainly would not say that using "ai". You express intention
using "ai". You do not claim to intend using "ai".

> and having in mind it's clean meaning with no extra implications?

Attitudinals have not clean meaning, and aren't intended to. Any
implications that they have are purely emotive.

lojbab

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

John E Clifford wrote:
> Interesting read on {ca'e}; where does it come from? I would have
> thought it belonged to rhetoric, not pragmatics; a move to stipulate a
> meaning for a contentious term in order to get on to substantive
> issues. Or to introduce a new term altogether to develop a novel
> theory. The "Believe or not, what I am now doing is showing intention
> to do x" reading seems to me not much in keeping with the given
> definition or the whirl of words (admittedly not very coherent) around
> the word {ca'e} in other contexts. It also seems strangely
> propositional (with which you can't do much but make a claim -- your
> example does seem to be an assertion with {ca'e} calling attention to it).

ca'e was defined and classified as one of the evidentials, which stem
from La'adan and Amerind languages. I don't think of them as
performative, as I understand that term (I probably don') or rhetorical.
But I am not sure about the applicability of "pragmatics" either.

Alas it has been 20 years since I thought much about La'adan and the
concepts that we borrowed from it.

> I agree that {zukte}, as it stands, does little for intentionally, but,
> as you note, that has little to do with intending to do something. I'm
> not sure (and philosophers as a group aren't either, never mind
> individuals with very definite ideas) just what is needed, as, perhaps,
> for a modifier "intentionally" left otherwise undefined.

I still think that platu is more applicable than zukte. zukte has a
goal which is probably an intention, but it links a specific action to
that goal, which may less an intention than one of several steps in
order to achieve the intended terzu'e goal (and possibly not a necessary
step, if there is more than one way to achieve the goal).

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

Mike S. wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com
> <mailto:jjlla...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> At least no claim or assertion can do it, but you can use a
> proposition for other purposes than making claims. "ca'e" is supposed
> to mark a sentence as a performative (despite its gloss), so if you
> say "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi brodu lo nu klama"; "I hereby express my
> intention to go", you are thereby expressing an intention to go. So
> ".ai" could be taken as an abreviated form of "ca'e mi jarco lo nu mi
> brodu". Similarly for other attitudinals, "ui" is similar to "ca'e mi
> jarco lo nu mi gleki", "I hereby display my happiness", and so on.
> (The wordy form doesn't quite have the same practical effect though.)
>

> I would think that ".ui" simply means "I am happy", not "I display my
> happiness".

No. It means neither, because both of those are truth-functional
claims, and "ui" is not.

> Either way, if the speaker is actually unhappy,

then he isn't really speaking Lojban. (or as you suggest below, he is
delusional)

Attitudinals are emotional expressions. In theory "ui" should be the
same as what other-language speakers do when they express happiness
non-verbally.

> I think
> that we have to admit that he is being disingenuous to his audience if
> he utters ".ui" with no hint of irony.

He is being meaningless - expressing noise in a confusing manner.

> Because of this, I think these
> attitudinals are as truth-functional as any brivla: they evaluate to a
> real truth value

By definition they do not.

> given two arguments: the speaker and the proposition
> that the attitudinal is embedded in. Obviously it's hard to know if a
> person is truthful in the expression of his own feelings,

One cannot be untruthful. One can either express one's feelings or one
can fail to express one's feelings, possibly making irrelevant noises in
the process.

> Even more so in the case with the irrealis attitudinals. If I say ".ai
> [I am giving you a million bucks tomorrow]" when I know that I am
> bankrupt and all my banking accounts are overdrawn then clearly I am
> lying to you.

It is probably false that you are giving a million bucks. The
attitudinal is irrelevant to that falsehood. (by my understandiong,
"irrealis" means that the attitudinal is irrelevant to the
truth-functional value of the proposition)

> ".ai mi dunda la lunra do" is simply (literally) false
> when uttered by any non-delusional interlocutor.

iff it is false when the ".ai" is omitted, then it is false with the
"ai" included.

But the emotional expression of ".ai" could still be quite honest, even
if it would be delusional to think the underlying proposition to be true.

Emotions are NOT "logical", nor truth-functional. Most people probably
prefer it that way, even if it makes them sometimes seem a bit
delusional. So long as we can clearly distinguish between the claim and
the emotional expression, this causes no problem in communication.

When you start trying to make attitudinals truth-functional, you kill
the whole point in having them in the language, which is to allow
expression of emotions without having to worry about "truthiness".
Assigning truth to attitudinals INVITES people to lie using them,
whereas the expressions of attitude in natural language generally are
not subject to such analysis.

The example I like to use for this are most uses of obscenities in
English. When my dad talked about the "f***ing door being left open" he
was not attributing reproductive activity on the part of an inanimate
object, and indeed there was no truth functionality to that adjective -
it was expressing an attitude towards the state being described. We
might argue about what attitude he was expressing, (and the point of
Lojban attitudinals is to enable one to be clear in expressing one's
attitudes if one wishes), but one would not legitimately be able to say
that my dad was lying either about the door or about his emotions in
making that expression.

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

Mike S. wrote:
> If I am free and officially sanctioned to say "ui" disingenuously i.e.
> without really being happy, or I can say "ai" without even the slightest
> conscious real intention (at the time, perhaps speaking a complete lie)
> of follow-through, then I fear that "ui" and "ai" have no real meaning.
> Is this what is wanted?

Yes - or at least any "meaning" is orthogonal to the truth of the bridi
being expressed.

> Consider what politicians would do with these
> conventions. Consider what they already do speaking English.

One cannot stop people from misusing language. That doesn't mean that
one should define language for the intent of having it misused.

> If attitudinals don't assert at least a vague albeit real feeling felt
> by the speaker, what do attitudinals really do?

Express. Attitude.

Something that human beings do naturally, often without language, which
makes it rather difficult to communicate via email or even by telephone
in the same way we can communicate in person. Attitudinals are an
attempt to remedy that deficiency, and they only really work if we can
use them fluently without thinking about them, in the same way that body
language, tone of voice, and the occasional ejaculative expression works
for natlang speakers.

But why in a logical language, a predicate-based
> language, should the semantics of this small set of illocutionary
> constructions be extended to the inner states of the speaker?

The attitudinals are orthogonal to the predicate-base language. They
fulfil an expressive need of human beings that CANNOT be met with
predictations, that are fundamentally NOT "logical".

Someone wishing to speak a purely "logical" language would never use
attitudinals.

Why
> _doesn't_ the speaker saying "ui" simply imply that the speaker is
> really gleki,

Because human beings are illogical.

> as a person would intuitively suspect? What does it
> really mean otherwise?

It doesn't "mean" anything, truth-functionally.

> What do we gain from that dubious interpretation?

Humanity.

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

iesk wrote:
> ba'e pe'i di'e
>
> You are free and officially sanctioned to fake a smile. Politicians do
> fake smiles. In spite of all that, a smile usually means something to
> you (not in a propositional way). However that works, that's how UIs
> should work.
>
> Whenever human beings smile, we are *usually* entitled to say that they
> are happy (I’m simplifying, obviously). You are wise to assume that
> *some* instances of smiling are fake, but you just don't assume that
> *all* smiles are fake. If you did, you'd probably end up being
> considered mentally ill or something.
>
> Whenever a Lojban speaker says {.ui}, same thing. It is part of the
> Lojban Sprachspiel.^^
>
> Whenever I feel like giving in to the temptation of thinking about UIs
> in terms of truth and falsehood, I remind myself that UIs are
> essentially like body language, viz. (to the ideal Lojban speaker) they
> are a natural extension and, if you will, enrichment of it. Verbalised
> non-verbal communication.

go'i iecai

[Jorge Llambías]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Bob LeChevalier, President and
Founder - LLG <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> Attitudinals are emotional expressions. In theory "ui" should be the same
> as what other-language speakers do when they express happiness non-verbally.

Lojban ".ui" is pretty much equivalent to English "whee!" or
"yippee!", which are verbal expressions of happiness or joy. There's
no reason to pretend English doesn't have interjections, or that
Lojban's interjections are all that different from other language's.
Their only special property is their being somewhat systematic. But
not every UI is an interjection, not even every UI1.

> One cannot be untruthful. One can either express one's feelings or one can
> fail to express one's feelings, possibly making irrelevant noises in the
> process.

Those "irrelevant noises" can however be interpreted by others, and
therefore they do carry meaning, and can be used to deceive. It makes
little difference whether we call them false or fake when used
inappropriately, but they don't turn into irrelevant noises just
because of that.

> (by my understandiong, "irrealis" means
> that the attitudinal is irrelevant to the truth-functional value of the
> proposition)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrealis_mood

"Irrealis moods are the main set of grammatical moods that indicate
that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened as
the speaker is talking."

Some UIs (e.g. ".a'o", "la'a", "da'i", "xu") give a proposition an
irrealis mood, which means that it is not being claimed by the speaker
as something known to have happened:

.a'o la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
"Hopefully, John found his passport."

la'a la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
"Probably, John found his passport."

da'i la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
"Let's assume John found his passport."

xu la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
"Did John find his passport."

Those are not claims that John did find his passport. The speaker
doesn't know whether he did or not, that's why an irrealis marker is
used.

> Emotions are NOT "logical", nor truth-functional. Most people probably
> prefer it that way, even if it makes them sometimes seem a bit delusional.
> So long as we can clearly distinguish between the claim and the emotional
> expression, this causes no problem in communication.

It should be pointed out that most UIs are not used for emotional
expression, although some of them can probably be turned into
expressions of emotion by adding "ro'i".

[MorphemeAddict]

And yet attitudinals do have meaning. Meaning and truth-value have almost nothing in common. 

stevo 

What do we gain from that dubious interpretation?

Humanity.
--
Bob LeChevalier    loj...@lojban.org    www.lojban.org

President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

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[Alex Rozenshteyn]

> .a'o la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
> "Hopefully, John found his passport."

Can't this also be viewed as "There's hope! John found his passport."
If not, how would I express that?

>
> la'a la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
> "Probably, John found his passport."
>
> da'i la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
> "Let's assume John found his passport."
>
> xu la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
> "Did John find his passport."
>
> Those are not claims that John did find his passport. The speaker
> doesn't know whether he did or not, that's why an irrealis marker is
> used.
>
>> Emotions are NOT "logical", nor truth-functional. Most people probably
>> prefer it that way, even if it makes them sometimes seem a bit delusional.
>> So long as we can clearly distinguish between the claim and the emotional
>> expression, this causes no problem in communication.
>
> It should be pointed out that most UIs are not used for emotional
> expression, although some of them can probably be turned into
> expressions of emotion by adding "ro'i".
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>

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Alex R

[Jorge Llambías]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 7:41 PM, Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> .a'o la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy
>> "Hopefully, John found his passport."
>
> Can't this also be viewed as "There's hope! John found his passport."
> If not, how would I express that?

I would say: ".a'o .i la djan pu tolcri lo jaspu be dy"

[Gleki Arxokuna]

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 10:34:10 PM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:

Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> On Friday, August 10, 2012 11:07:53 PM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:
>
>     Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
>      > If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then
>     why there
>      > is no gismu for "intention"?
>
>     The intended gismu corresponding to intention was "platu", or perhaps
>     some compound thereof.  I'll accept the possible use of zukte proposed
>     by someone else, though I think intention need not be purposive either.
>
>      > {zukte} = "to intend"? the definition says nothing about that. It
>     should be clarified, that is changed.
>
>     The gismu list is baselined. We haven't allowed changes merely for
>     clarity for nearly 20 years.
>
> Here is the lack of clarity, actually. If there is no equivalent of
> {.ai} in gismu space we must create it.

I disagree.  It is NOT essential that concepts be expressed in gismu, if
they can be expressed in reasonably short, and possibly metaphorical, lujvo.

How would you say "I was gonna..."?

[iesk]

"I was gonna ..."

A good part of the native English usage probably escapes me, but why can't ZAhO Do the job?

{mi pu pu'o} or {mi pu co'a}?

Or is it a problem that, in English, you could continue "... but then I didn't"?

(I know doi la gleki arxokuna do'u you didn't ask me.)

-iesk

[Gleki Arxokuna]

On Monday, August 13, 2012 2:52:19 PM UTC+4, iesk wrote:

"I was gonna ..."

A good part of the native English usage probably escapes me, but why can't ZAhO Do the job?

{mi pu pu'o} or {mi pu co'a}?

Or is it a problem that, in English, you could continue "... but then I didn't"?

I wanted to express the meaning "I intended to..." 

But Robin said that {zu'edji} is fine for expressing "intention".

[Jorge Llambías]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I wanted to express the meaning "I intended to..."
> But Robin said that {zu'edji} is fine for expressing "intention".

I think there are two important differences between wanting to do
something and intending to do it. In order to intend to do something,
you have to believe that you can do it, whereas you could wish to do
it even knowing that you can't. The other difference is that you may
intend to do something that you don't really want to do, but for some
reason you feel that you must. So what you want to do is something
desirable for you, whereas what you intend to do need not be
desirable.

[Mike S.]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:

".ai mi dunda la lunra do" is simply (literally) false
when uttered by any non-delusional interlocutor.

iff it is false when the ".ai" is omitted, then it is false with the "ai" included.

But the emotional expression of ".ai" could still be quite honest, even if it would be delusional to think the underlying proposition to be true.

It's not quite that simple as Xorxes has pointed out.  Some attitudinals definitely do affect the truth conditions of the bridi they're applied to, namely the ones that shift the bridi into what in natlangs would be called an irrealis mood.  Perhaps "a'o" is the archetypical example.
 

Emotions are NOT "logical", nor truth-functional.  Most people probably prefer it that way, even if it makes them sometimes seem a bit delusional.  So long as we can clearly distinguish between the claim and the emotional expression, this causes no problem in communication.

When you start trying to make attitudinals truth-functional, you kill the whole point in having them in the language, which is to allow expression of emotions without having to worry about "truthiness". Assigning truth to attitudinals INVITES people to lie using them, whereas the expressions of attitude in natural language generally are not subject to such analysis.

The example I like to use for this are most uses of obscenities in English.  When my dad talked about the "f***ing door being left open" he was not attributing reproductive activity on the part of an inanimate object, and indeed there was no truth functionality to that adjective - it was expressing an attitude towards the state being described.  We might argue about what attitude he was expressing, (and the point of Lojban attitudinals is to enable one to be clear in expressing one's attitudes if one wishes), but one would not legitimately be able to say that my dad was lying either about the door or about his emotions in making that expression.

I hear what you're saying throughout this missive and I think I understand your reasoning (You don't want attitudinals to unnecessarily complicate the semantics, I dare presume), but what concerns me even in English is if someone talks about the about the "f***ing door being left open" when he's secretly delighted that the door was left open.  An implied inner state of the speaker's mind is being messaged through language, interjections, and even nonverbal cues, and the accuracy of those messages could _hypothetically at least_ be mapped to truth values based on whether those messages are accurate ones, or whether they're what you'd call disingenuous or false or whatever.  I agree with you that none of that affects the truth conditions of "someone left the door open" spoken in any language and in any register. But times may come when it is desirable to be able to talk metalinguistically about disingenuous play-acting, especially given the enormous toolbox that Lojban attitudinals comprise. 

Best,
-Mike

 

[Gleki Arxokuna]

How would you express the second meaning of  "what you intend to do need not be desirable. "?

[Mike S.]

It might be worth pointing out that, if I am correct, UI including irrealis UI can interact in more complicated ways than just over whole bridi, as in a coordinated sumti, presumably affecting meaning in relatively straightforward ways.

la djan .e .a'o la .alis. pu klama
"John, and hopefully Alice, went."

... means John went but doesn't mean Alice went, if I have it right.

la djan. pu klama .ije .a'o la .alis. pu klama
"John went, and hopefully Alice went."

... is the logically equivalent expanded form, I believe.

Can one say something like "John hopefully, but Alice [definitely], went."?  My guess would be:
la djan .a'o .e la .alis. pu klama

[v4hn]

coi rodo

please keep in mind I'm a {cnino lobtadni} and everything I say
might be complete nonsense.

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 12:42:18AM -0400, Mike S. wrote:
> It's not quite that simple as Xorxes has pointed out. Some attitudinals
> definitely do affect the truth conditions of the bridi they're applied to,
> namely the ones that shift the bridi into what in natlangs would be called
> an irrealis mood. Perhaps "a'o" is the archetypical example.

I would totally agree to {da'i}, because this actually means that you _suppose_
something, whether or not it is true.

However I do not agree to {a'o}. I just read through the list of cmavos in UI1
and I incline to think all words in there do not modify truth values.
(maybe they do by pragmatics, but they do not by truth-functional calculus)

If a soldier goes to war, his wife might say something like:
"He'll come back" without actually knowing that he will.
You could say that's the same as "I hope he will come back", but
this second sentence leaves the possibility that he will not come back
whereas the first one denies that possibility.

I would like to translate the first sentence with something like
{.i a'o lo speni be mi be'o ba xrukla}
and the second sentence with
{.i mi pacna lo nu lo speni be mi be'o ba xrukla}

As I just argued I think those sentences are rather different in what they
say, though the second is something of an objective description of the first.


mu'o mi'e la .van.

[Mike S.]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 7:12 AM, v4hn <m...@v4hn.de> wrote:

coi rodo

please keep in mind I'm a {cnino lobtadni} and everything I say
might be complete nonsense.

coi .van.

It has to be {cnino lobytadni} or {cnino jbotadni} due to phonotactic constraints.  But no worries, I myself am a {vitno cnino jbotadni} here.

 

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 12:42:18AM -0400, Mike S. wrote:
> It's not quite that simple as Xorxes has pointed out.  Some attitudinals
> definitely do affect the truth conditions of the bridi they're applied to,
> namely the ones that shift the bridi into what in natlangs would be called
> an irrealis mood.  Perhaps "a'o" is the archetypical example.

I would totally agree to {da'i}, because this actually means that you _suppose_
something, whether or not it is true.

However I do not agree to {a'o}. I just read through the list of cmavos in UI1
and I incline to think all words in there do not modify truth values.
(maybe they do by pragmatics, but they do not by truth-functional calculus)

I found CLL §13.3 regarding a-series and e-series attitudinals clear enough:

As mentioned at the beginning of Section 2, attitudinals may be divided into two groups, the pure emotion indicators explained in that section, and a contrasting group which may be called the “propositional attitude indicators”. These indicators establish an internal, hypothetical world which the speaker is reacting to, distinct from the world as it really is. Thus we may be expressing our attitude towards “what the world would be like if ...”, or more directly stating our attitude towards making the potential world a reality.

In general, the bridi paraphrases of pure emotions look (in English) something like “I’m going to the market, and I’m happy about it”. The emotion is present with the subject of the primary claim, but is logically independent of it. Propositional attitudes, though, look more like “I intend to go to the market”, where the main claim is logically subordinate to the intention: I am not claiming that I am actually going to the market, but merely that I intend to.

In fairness, the BPFK section on irrealis attitudinals mentions some disagreement in the speaking community on this matter.  I hadn't realized this until I read that section more carefully today.

If a soldier goes to war, his wife might say something like:
"He'll come back" without actually knowing that he will.
You could say that's the same as "I hope he will come back", but
this second sentence leaves the possibility that he will not come back
whereas the first one denies that possibility.

Right.  In this case the wife wants to make an unequivocal assertion despite her fear. (For this reason I think she'd leave off {a'o} if she were speaking Lojban.)

 

I would like to translate the first sentence with something like
{.i a'o lo speni be mi be'o ba xrukla}
and the second sentence with
{.i mi pacna lo nu lo speni be mi be'o ba xrukla}

As I just argued I think those sentences are rather different in what they
say, though the second is something of an objective description of the first.

Well that's crux of the differing opinions.  I think that "he'll come back" translates as simply {.i ko'a ba xrukla} and that you're adding something not in the original English when you add {a'o}. If you wanted to add something to represent the English intonation, maybe you'd want to say {.i ko'a ba ba'e xrukla} = "he will COME BACK [implied: not die]".

I'd go so far as to say that {a'o} is effectively a shortcut for {mi pacna lo nu}, though I am not sure who would agree with me on that.

mu'o mi'e .maik.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How would you express the second meaning of "what you intend to do need not
> be desirable. "?

We don't have a good word for "intend", but assuming we can ignore the
problems of "platu", then "lo se platu be do ka'a na se djica" (or "na
bi'ai se djica").

For some reason "se platu" became the preferred word for (computer)
program though, which I'm not sure how to reconcile with intentions.
Also platu has an x3 which I don't understand, and my ideal word for
"intend" would not be restricted to things that are to happen in the
future of the intending.

[Mike S.]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 7:20 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Aug 14, 2012 at 2:38 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How would you express the second meaning of  "what you intend to do need not
> be desirable. "?

We don't have a good word for "intend", but assuming we can ignore the
problems of "platu", then "lo se platu be do ka'a na se djica" (or "na
bi'ai se djica").

It should be {lo se platu be do ka'e naku se djica}, right?

[Jorge Llambías]

"ka'e", yes, that was a typo. The "ku" is not needed.

[Mike S.]

Can I take "not needed" to mean "deliberately omitted in an attempt to flout the evil old NA-scope rule out of existence"?

[Jorge Llambías]

That rule doesn't work (e.g. "su'o mlatu cu na xekri gi'e na blabi"),
so yes, you can.

[la gleki]

On Friday, August 10, 2012 7:37:11 PM UTC+4, selpa'i wrote:

Am 10.08.2012 16:54, schrieb Gleki Arxokuna:

If the difference between {.ai} and {.au} is so important then why there is no gismu for "intention"?

Just {zukte djica}? Just a metaphorical tanru? Or a lujvo again derived from {djica}?

And why such a huge bias in favor of cmavo and not predicates in a predicate language?

.ai = zukte
Someone does something (zukte2) for some purpose (zukte3), all of which is intentional.
The purpose (zukte3) of action z2 is what their intention is in doing zukte2.  (Wow, that is horribly phrased.)
Maybe an example will be helpful.

.ai mi na za'u re'u citka lo rectu
~=
mi zukte fi lo nu na ze'u re'u citka lo rectu

You could ask what the zukte2 would be in such cases. I think, often zukte2 and zukte3 can be identical. The action is also the intention, that is, the action is 'intentional'.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

I just noticed  that "I intend to..." can also be {mi te mukti}.

 

-- 
pilno zo le xu .i lo dei bangu cu se cmene zo lojbo .e nai zo lejbo