WikiDiscuss

Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.

For example: {ji'a sai} for "even", {na sai} for "not at all",
{ja'a ru'e} for "barely", {na ru'e} for "almost", {nau sai} for
"at this very moment", etc.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

---

> Intensifiers have been used to
> intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
> preceding word whatever it is, not just for
> emotions.
>
> For example: {ji'a sai} for "even", {na sai}
> for "not at all",
> {ja'a ru'e} for "barely", {na ru'e} for
> "almost", {nau sai} for
> "at this very moment", etc.
>
While the practice makes a sort of sense, one
example caught my eye as being unclear: why does
"strongly in addition" mean "even" (as in, I
suppose, "Even Bob came" or, for sure, "In a
pinch bears will eat even insects." That this
contains and "in addition" component ("over and
above the usual or expected") is clear, but why
"strongly?" Typically, "even" is treated as
setting up a scale of things with respect to
their initial probability of participation in the
event at hand, with (coming, being Ursy Chow),
with a turn-over point (surely by 50-50) beyond
which things are definitely not expected to be
involved. "Even" then says that something beyond
that line *is* involved (and, some would say
further, that this is the most remote thing to be
involved). So there is an element of acute
surprise in its being involved, but is that
enough to make the addition a strongly felt one?
One would have expected this to be for the coup
de grace, the final added whatever that cinched
whatever was at issue (or is that {ji'a cai})?
(I wonder too what becomes of "not even," which
is just "even not": "Not even John came" = "Even
John did not come"). this is not a criticism,
just a question of how these sequences are to be
understood here — with perhaps some help for
even more remote uses.

On 6/25/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> One would have expected this to be for the coup
> de grace, the final added whatever that cinched
> whatever was at issue

Yes, it works like that too: "it sends faxes, it handles electronic mail,
and it even reads my own handwriting"

> (or is that {ji'a cai})?

Personally, I tend not to use {cai} because, there already being
{sai} for intensification, {cai} always seems excessive. But {ji'a cai}
can always be used for an "over-even" if the need arises.

> (I wonder too what becomes of "not even," which
> is just "even not": "Not even John came" = "Even
> John did not come").

{la djan ji'a sai na klama}

If {ji'a nai} can be used for "except", then {ji'a nai sai} would
work for "not even" too.

this is not a criticism,
> just a question of how these sequences are to be
> understood here — with perhaps some help for
> even more remote uses.

je'e mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sat, 2005-06-25 at 17:27 -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
> preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.
>
> For example: {ji'a sai} for "even", {na sai} for "not at all",
> {ja'a ru'e} for "barely", {na ru'e} for "almost", {nau sai} for
> "at this very moment", etc.

I understood that in these cases, ge'e was auto-inserted in a way
similar to zo'e-insertion when sumti are elided.

mu'o mi'e bancus

Comments on examples:

1. ju'ocu'i la lojban cu racli bangu i ku'i ju'osai lo jbopre ta'e na racli prenu
2. I'm not certain if Lojban is a sane language, but I am very sure that Lojbanists are habitually not sane people.

s/sane/rational/

1. .oiru'e mi pu zi ze'a jitro le skami be le mi mamta sepi'o la'o gy VNC gy ce'o la'o gy ssh gy

s/be /pe /

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Jeg er nok verdens sydligste sengevter. Forutsatt at ingen p basen p
Sydpolen driver med slikt, da. --Erling Kagge: Alene til Sydpolen

On 6/26/05, Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-06-25 at 17:27 -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> > Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
> > preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.
> >
> > For example: {ji'a sai} for "even", {na sai} for "not at all",
> > {ja'a ru'e} for "barely", {na ru'e} for "almost", {nau sai} for
> > "at this very moment", etc.
>
> I understood that in these cases, ge'e was auto-inserted in a way
> similar to zo'e-insertion when sumti are elided.

{ji'a}, at least, is in UI, so it is not clear why it could not be intensified
even though it is not an emotion. In any case, I was describing usage
(and not just my own) rather than prescription. I think limiting the
intensifiers to emotions is a waste of a very useful resource.

(BTW, you mention a "nine point scale" in the definitions, but it's a
seven point scale, isn't it: cai sai ru'e cu'i nairu'e naisai naicai.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambas wrote:

> {ji'a}, at least, is in UI, so it is not clear why it could not be intensified
> even though it is not an emotion. In any case, I was describing usage
> (and not just my own) rather than prescription. I think limiting the
> intensifiers to emotions is a waste of a very useful resource.

What about compositionality?

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes.

On 6/26/05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambías wrote:
>
> > {ji'a}, at least, is in UI, so it is not clear why it could not be intensified
> > even though it is not an emotion. In any case, I was describing usage
> > (and not just my own) rather than prescription. I think limiting the
> > intensifiers to emotions is a waste of a very useful resource.
>
> What about compositionality?

What about it? "Intensifies the sense of the preceding word" is compositional.

In {ui sai}, it is {ui} that carries the emotional sense, {sai} simply
intensifies it. It is not necessary that {sai} independently contains
the sense of emotion, just as in {ui nai} it is not necessary that
{nai} contains in itself an emotional sense.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambas wrote:

> On 6/26/05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>> On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambas wrote:
>>
>>> {ji'a}, at least, is in UI, so it is not clear why it could not be intensified
>>> even though it is not an emotion. In any case, I was describing usage
>>> (and not just my own) rather than prescription. I think limiting the
>>> intensifiers to emotions is a waste of a very useful resource.
>>
>> What about compositionality?
>
> What about it? "Intensifies the sense of the preceding word" is compositional.
>
> In {ui sai}, it is {ui} that carries the emotional sense, {sai} simply
> intensifies it. It is not necessary that {sai} independently contains
> the sense of emotion, just as in {ui nai} it is not necessary that
> {nai} contains in itself an emotional sense.

Granted. But it is not obvious to me how "ji'a sai" is the same as
additionally + intense. There seems to be some subtle change of meaning
lurking in the corners. "ui sai" is an expression of intense happiness,
but "ji'a sai" is not an expression of something being intensely
additional, if we are to follow your example sentence.

Or perhaps you are suggesting that the definition of "ji'a" should have a
scale as UI1 has? That would be quite arbitrary, but perhaps not more
arbitrary than some of the other scales. In any case, you would have to
find out what "ji'anai" means.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
You Can't Have Your Kate And Edith Too.

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 11:11 -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On 6/26/05, Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2005-06-25 at 17:27 -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> > > Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
> > > preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.
> > >
> > > For example: {ji'a sai} for "even", {na sai} for "not at all",
> > > {ja'a ru'e} for "barely", {na ru'e} for "almost", {nau sai} for
> > > "at this very moment", etc.
> >
> > I understood that in these cases, ge'e was auto-inserted in a way
> > similar to zo'e-insertion when sumti are elided.
>
> {ji'a}, at least, is in UI, so it is not clear why it could not be intensified
> even though it is not an emotion. In any case, I was describing usage
> (and not just my own) rather than prescription. I think limiting the
> intensifiers to emotions is a waste of a very useful resource.

Well, I recall encountering this usage (it's mine also), and asking
about its legality. The ge'e bit was the explanation I received.

> (BTW, you mention a "nine point scale" in the definitions, but it's a
> seven point scale, isn't it: cai sai ru'e cu'i nairu'e naisai naicai.)

Yeah, I had it as seven-point originally, then I realized that the bare
UI also occupies space in the scale.

uicai uisai ui uiru'e uicu'i ...

> mu'o mi'e xorxes

mu'o mi'e bancus

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 11:42 +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> Comments on examples:
>
> # ju'ocu'i la lojban cu racli bangu i ku'i ju'osai lo jbopre ta'e na racli prenu
> # I'm not certain if Lojban is a sane language, but I am very sure that Lojbanists are habitually not sane people.
>
> s/sane/rational/

racli can also mean sane, but the original speaker probably meant
rational. Fixed.

> # .oiru'e mi pu zi ze'a jitro le skami be le mi mamta sepi'o la'o gy VNC gy ce'o la'o gy ssh gy
>
> s/be /pe /

Fixed.

mu'o mi'e bancus

On 6/26/05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> Granted. But it is not obvious to me how "ji'a sai" is the same as
> additionally + intense. There seems to be some subtle change of meaning
> lurking in the corners.

It's not just any additional case, but one that is for some reason
intensely so. That's all you need to understand in order to use the
Lojban expression. You need not relate it to the English word
"even" if you don't want to. My only point is that there is no
need for {sai} to be restricted to emotions, as it is useful in
gradating a lot more words than just the emotional interjections.

> "ui sai" is an expression of intense happiness,
> but "ji'a sai" is not an expression of something being intensely
> additional, if we are to follow your example sentence.

Why not? It indicates an additonal case, but an extreme one
rather than just any other one.

> Or perhaps you are suggesting that the definition of "ji'a" should have a
> scale as UI1 has? That would be quite arbitrary, but perhaps not more
> arbitrary than some of the other scales. In any case, you would have to
> find out what "ji'anai" means.

{ji'a nai} should mean something along the lines of "except", but that's
a different point.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On 6/26/05, Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us> wrote:
> Well, I recall encountering this usage (it's mine also), and asking
> about its legality. The ge'e bit was the explanation I received.

The {ge'e} explanation doesn't satisfy me because it does not fit
with any actual usage as far as I can tell, and because it removes
a useful and actually used function of the intensifiers.

> > (BTW, you mention a "nine point scale" in the definitions, but it's a
> > seven point scale, isn't it: cai sai ru'e cu'i nairu'e naisai naicai.)
>
> Yeah, I had it as seven-point originally, then I realized that the bare
> UI also occupies space in the scale.
>
> uicai uisai ui uiru'e uicu'i ...

As I see it, those are at different levels. At the coarsest level we have
three points: ui, uicu'i, uinai, then we can refine to seven, and the
refinement can in theory proceed: uicaicai, uicaisai, uicairu'e,
uisaicai, uisaisai, uisairu'e, uiru'ecai, uiru'esai, uiru'eru'e, uicu'i, ...,
gives a 19 point scale, although I doubt that will actually get a lot of
use. CLL talks about a seven point scale.

(Another question is, if {u'ocu'i} expresses shyness for example, wouldn't
{u'ocu'icai} express extreme shyness? That would mean the scale can
have more dimensions than the seven or nine point one.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Theodore Reed scripsit:

> > (BTW, you mention a "nine point scale" in the definitions, but it's a
> > seven point scale, isn't it: cai sai ru'e cu'i nairu'e naisai naicai.)
>
> Yeah, I had it as seven-point originally, then I realized that the bare
> UI also occupies space in the scale.

Actually no, it's only a seven-point scale. "ui" and "uinai" are vague about
intensity, so they occupy the space from "uinaisai" toward the center, but
not actually reaching it.

--
We are lost, lost. No name, no business, no Precious, nothing. Only empty.
Only hungry: yes, we are hungry. A few little fishes, nassty bony little
fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death. So wise they are; so just,
so very just. --Gollum jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan

---

> On 6/26/05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org>
> wrote:
> > Granted. But it is not obvious to me how
> "ji'a sai" is the same as
> > additionally + intense. There seems to be
> some subtle change of meaning
> > lurking in the corners.
>
> It's not just any additional case, but one that
> is for some reason
> intensely so. That's all you need to understand
> in order to use the
> Lojban expression. You need not relate it to
> the English word
> "even" if you don't want to. My only point is
> that there is no
> need for {sai} to be restricted to emotions, as
> it is useful in
> gradating a lot more words than just the
> emotional interjections.

I guess the basic question is, "What does it mean
to say that something is intensely additional?"
As near as I can make out, the cvlaim seems to be
that it is that the addition arouses some intense
emotion (though not necessarily intensely: "even"
is more literally {ji'a ue} but not necessarily
{ji'a ue sai}). In that sense, the covert {ge'e}
does seem appropriate and the {sai} only seems to
modify {ji'a}. From what xorxes say, this is not
what he means, but what that is remains obscure
(as a zealous supporter of literalness and
compositionality in other areas, xorxes could be
expected to have some analytic explanation of
what is going on here). At the moment we seem to
have three choices, none of them very
satisfactory: {ji'a sai} does not mean "even" but
only something close to it in some way, {ji'a
sai} does mean "even" but is an indiom not a
literal reading, or {ji'a sai} is really addition
plus some unspecified "strong" emotion (perhaps a
version of 1) not a "strong addition" at all. As
noted, {ji'a sai} for "even" sems perfectly
reasonable to me, but it makes me want to go back
and look again at some BAI where useful reading
were rejected on the basis of some notion of
literalness and compositionality.

> > "ui sai" is an expression of intense
> happiness,
> > but "ji'a sai" is not an expression of
> something being intensely
> > additional, if we are to follow your example
> sentence.
>
> Why not? It indicates an additonal case, but an
> extreme one
> rather than just any other one.

Well, extreme in what way? Things are added or
not; there isn't a more extreme adding. Of
course, what is added may itself be extreme in
some way, but that seems to be a very different
matter.

> > Or perhaps you are suggesting that the
> definition of "ji'a" should have a
> > scale as UI1 has? That would be quite
> arbitrary, but perhaps not more
> > arbitrary than some of the other scales. In
> any case, you would have to
> > find out what "ji'anai" means.
>
> {ji'a nai} should mean something along the
> lines of "except", but that's
> a different point.

Again there is a jump here, though maybe less a
one than for {jia sai} as "even". I take it
that, out of all the things that suffexed {nai}
has been taken to do (the whole range of
negations and beyond, applied to just about
anything in the vicinity), this is a case of
negating (perhaps polar, perhaps merely
contradictory)the efeect of {ji'a}, that is,
either not adding or actually taking away. On
the one hand, if we list what is added, we call
attention with this to what is not added (but
might be expected to be?). On the other hand, if
we give the addition in general terms we
explicitly list the exceptions "all but..." or
"most but particularly not." Both of these are
perhaps recoverable, especially if we know what
{nai} is doing< but they still seem to be less
than literal/compositional. Again, the idiom
seems fine, if nonliteral idioms are allowed.

I will respond on {ji'a sai} in a different thread. The issue here
is whether intensifiers can modify emotions only or whether they
can modify other scalable words too. Let's consider a perhaps
less controversial case:

la'a cai la djan klama le zarci

Is that:

1) Extremely likely: John goes to the market.

or:

2) Likely, and I feel a strong indefinite emotion
about it: John goes to the market.

?

To me, it is obviously (1), and defining the intensifiers
so that it is (2) is a waste of useful modifiers.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambas wrote:

> The issue here is whether intensifiers can modify emotions only or
> whether they can modify other scalable words too. Let's consider a
> perhaps less controversial case:
>
> la'a cai la djan klama le zarci
>
> Is that:
>
> 1) Extremely likely: John goes to the market.
>
> or:
>
> 2) Likely, and I feel a strong indefinite emotion
> about it: John goes to the market.
>
> ?
>
> To me, it is obviously (1), ...

I agree. So does a cursory usage survey (of la'asai and la'acai).

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule. Ice is cool.

On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 08:54:51PM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
>
> >The issue here is whether intensifiers can modify emotions only
> >or whether they can modify other scalable words too. Let's
> >consider a perhaps less controversial case:
> >
> > la'a cai la djan klama le zarci
> >
> >Is that:
> >
> >1) Extremely likely: John goes to the market.
> >
> >or:
> >
> >2) Likely, and I feel a strong indefinite emotion about it: John
> >goes to the market.
> >
> >?
> >
> >To me, it is obviously (1), ...
>
> I agree. So does a cursory usage survey (of la'asai and la'acai).

I also agree.

-Robin

---

<rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 08:54:51PM +0200, Arnt
> Richard Johansen wrote:
> > On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >
> > >The issue here is whether intensifiers can
> modify emotions only
> > >or whether they can modify other scalable
> words too. Let's
> > >consider a perhaps less controversial case:
> > >
> > > la'a cai la djan klama le zarci
> > >
> > >Is that:
> > >
> > >1) Extremely likely: John goes to the
> market.
> > >
> > >or:
> > >
> > >2) Likely, and I feel a strong indefinite
> emotion about it: John
> > >goes to the market.
> > >
> > >?
> > >
> > >To me, it is obviously (1), ...
> >
> > I agree. So does a cursory usage survey (of
> la'asai and la'acai).
>
> I also agree.

Me too, but I note that this helps not a jot for
the very different {ji'a sai} case.

On Sun, 2005-06-26 at 21:53 -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> As I see it, those are at different levels. At the coarsest level we have
> three points: ui, uicu'i, uinai, then we can refine to seven, and the
> refinement can in theory proceed: uicaicai, uicaisai, uicairu'e,
> uisaicai, uisaisai, uisairu'e, uiru'ecai, uiru'esai, uiru'eru'e, uicu'i, ...,
> gives a 19 point scale, although I doubt that will actually get a lot of
> use. CLL talks about a seven point scale.
>
> (Another question is, if {u'ocu'i} expresses shyness for example, wouldn't
> {u'ocu'icai} express extreme shyness? That would mean the scale can
> have more dimensions than the seven or nine point one.)
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes

Alright, I'll accept this.

But on the "modifying anything" thread, do you see any words that these
words should *not* be able to modify?
--
Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us>

On 6/29/05, Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us> wrote:
> But on the "modifying anything" thread, do you see any words that these
> words should *not* be able to modify?

I don't see any. I can think of some that are unlikely to be
ever modified by intensifiers, but none that I would dictate
to be unmodifiable.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Jorge Llambas wrote:

> Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense of the
> preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.

I see that this example still stands:

1. lo xagji cribe cu citka lo cinki ku ji'a sai
2. A hungry bear will eat even insects.

Hence I cannot vote yes on the section.

Might I suggest a different translation:
"A hungry bear will eat insects to boot."

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
The problem is, witchcraft is not fantasy; it is a sinful reality in
our world. --christiananswers.net

On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 01:23:06AM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen
wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
>
> >Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense
> >of the preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.
>
> I see that this example still stands:
>
> # lo xagji cribe cu citka lo cinki ku ji'a sai
> # A hungry bear will eat even insects.
>
> Hence I cannot vote yes on the section.
>
> Might I suggest a different translation: "A hungry bear will eat
> insects to boot."

I see those translations as being semantically identical, except
that "to boot" makes you sound a bit uneducated. What difference do
you see?

-Robin

On Sat, 9 Jul 2005, Robin Lee Powell wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 01:23:06AM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen
> wrote:
>> On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
>>
>>> Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the sense
>>> of the preceding word whatever it is, not just for emotions.
>>
>> I see that this example still stands:
>>
>> # lo xagji cribe cu citka lo cinki ku ji'a sai
>> # A hungry bear will eat even insects.
>>
>> Hence I cannot vote yes on the section.
>>
>> Might I suggest a different translation: "A hungry bear will eat
>> insects to boot."
>
> I see those translations as being semantically identical, except
> that "to boot" makes you sound a bit uneducated. What difference do
> you see?

"To boot", along with "also" and "in addition", lacks the sense of setting
up a scale at which the mentioned item (in this case, insects) are seen as
the most extreme point, and that the relationship also holds for items
less extreme on the same scale, that "even" has. That is a whole lot of
semantics for just a little "sai". See also my and pc's comments on this
upthread.

In other words, I'm okay with "also" or its synonyms that are "stronger",
but not "even", which is a non-synonym. If you think the only difference
between "also" and "to boot" is that the latter makes you sound like a
dimwit, it's probably not a good idea.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Leser Catcher in the Rye. Skal bli fint bli ferdig med den s jeg
fr litt mer dopapir. --Erling Kagge: Alene til Sydpolen

On 7/10/05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> >> I see that this example still stands:
> >>
> >> # lo xagji cribe cu citka lo cinki ku ji'a sai
> >> # A hungry bear will eat even insects.
> >>
> >> Hence I cannot vote yes on the section.

BTW, this is the discussion forum for {sai}, not for {ji'a}.
The example is not in this the section.

> >> Might I suggest a different translation: "A hungry bear will eat
> >> insects to boot."

I will add "to boot", "moreover" and "furtermore" as keywords.
But all of these seem to correspond to ji'a (or ji'asai), as applied
to a whole sentence, not to a sumti.

For example:

"If I could only convince my wife to move there, me and the dogs would
be much happier! And I could have a few more dogs to boot!"

"To boot" here modifies "and I could have a few more dogs", not
just "a few more dogs".

And, as far as I can tell, this could also be expressed as:
"and I could even have a few more dogs".

> "To boot", along with "also" and "in addition", lacks the sense of setting
> up a scale at which the mentioned item (in this case, insects) are seen as
> the most extreme point, and that the relationship also holds for items
> less extreme on the same scale, that "even" has. That is a whole lot of
> semantics for just a little "sai". See also my and pc's comments on this
> upthread.

Why just a little {sai}? There are two words involved here, {ji'a} and {sai}.
Most of the content is carried bu {ji'a}: that the relationship also holds
for other items. {sai} only contributes that the marked item is especially
noteworthy.

> In other words, I'm okay with "also" or its synonyms that are "stronger",
> but not "even", which is a non-synonym. If you think the only difference
> between "also" and "to boot" is that the latter makes you sound like a
> dimwit, it's probably not a good idea.

How would you translate "a hungry bear will eat even insects" into Lojban?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 09:06:16AM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen
wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Jul 2005, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>
> >On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 01:23:06AM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen
> >wrote:
> >>On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >>
> >>>Intensifiers have been used to intensify/moderate/etc. the
> >>>sense of the preceding word whatever it is, not just for
> >>>emotions.
> >>
> >>I see that this example still stands:
> >>
> >>> lo xagji cribe cu citka lo cinki ku ji'a sai
> >>>
> >>> A hungry bear will eat even insects.
> >>
> >>Hence I cannot vote yes on the section.
> >>
> >>Might I suggest a different translation: "A hungry bear will eat
> >>insects to boot."
> >
> >I see those translations as being semantically identical, except
> >that "to boot" makes you sound a bit uneducated. What difference
> >do you see?
>
> "To boot", along with "also" and "in addition", lacks the sense of
> setting up a scale at which the mentioned item (in this case,
> insects) are seen as the most extreme point, and that the
> relationship also holds for items less extreme on the same scale,
> that "even" has.

In my lexicon, the above is true only if you replace the words "the most"
with "a more". "even" sets up a scale, but identifies the things it
tags only as being exceptional, not as being superlative.

> That is a whole lot of semantics for just a little "sai".

"Even Bob likes cookies" == "In addition, Bob likes cookies, and for
some reason this is exceptional" == ji'a (in addition) + sai
(exceptional).

For some senses of "even", "ji'a .ue" is probably better.

> In other words, I'm okay with "also" or its synonyms that are
> "stronger", but not "even", which is a non-synonym.

I disagree that "even" is not an English synonym for "also".

> If you think the only difference between "also" and "to boot" is
> that the latter makes you sound like a dimwit, it's probably not a
> good idea.

Uneducated, but that's probably just a locality thing.

-Robin

On Sun, Jul 10, 2005 at 06:04:28PM -0300, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > >> Might I suggest a different translation: "A hungry bear will
> > >> eat insects to boot."
>
> I will add "to boot", "moreover" and "furtermore" as keywords. But
> all of these seem to correspond to ji'a (or ji'asai), as applied
> to a whole sentence, not to a sumti.
>
> For example:
>
> "If I could only convince my wife to move there, me and the dogs
> would be much happier! And I could have a few more dogs to boot!"
>
> "To boot" here modifies "and I could have a few more dogs", not
> just "a few more dogs".

None of "even", "as well", "furthermore" and "moreover" fix this.
AFAIK, there is no way to fix this in English.

> And, as far as I can tell, this could also be expressed as: "and I
> could even have a few more dogs".

I agree than "And I could have a few more dogs to boot!" is

• exactly* synonymous with "and Icould even have a few more dogs" in

the English I speak.

-Robin

(I've been going through the old BPFK phpbb and extracting my forgotten pearls of wisdom, and have been encouraged to start re-inserting some of them into the debates. Again).

One thing that I've mentioned a few times in Lojban circles (the first being in http://wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9207/msg00071.html) is the need for a word in CAI (or UI, since the grammar is about the same) which means the speaker is explicitly declining to give his position on the scale in question. My usual example is a newscaster referring to Israel as "la censa gugde"—not that he necessarily believes that the land is holy—but then again, he might—but because that's what it's commonly called. It isn't a perfect example, since it could be claimed that the use of "la" gets some of that idea across, but even "la" doesn't really do it. And there are probably other examples that are clearer.

Something like .iaxu'e (using xu'e as the putative cmavo I'm suggesting) would get this across: "I don't necessarily believe this—but then again, maybe I do." Things like .uixu'e and so on. Lojban may claim to be neutral, but there are concepts that listeners will tend to ascribe some positive or negative baggage to, which a dispassionate observer may need to disclaim explicitly.

In http://wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9207/msg00087.html, John Cowan suggested that this be accomplished by ge'e. But we already have too many other meanings tied into ge'e. Relevant sections from CLL, from the version at http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=185:

So we see that ge'e is suggested for this. Here's a relevant post of mine to the phpbb on the subject of ge'e:

I think that spells the ge'e situation out pretty well: we need to make more sense of it.

Is this all good enough food for thought for you folkses?

--mi'e clsn.

> Something like .iaxu'e (using xu'e as the putative cmavo
> I'm suggesting) would get this across: "I don't necessarily believe
> this—but then again, maybe I do."

> --mi'e clsn.

Could perhaps {ia na'i} ("my belief does not apply here") be used for this?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Jorge Llambas wrote:

>>Something like .iaxu'e (using xu'e as the putative cmavo
>>I'm suggesting) would get this across: "I don't necessarily believe
>>thisbut then again, maybe I do."
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>--mi'e clsn.
>>
>>
>
>Could perhaps {ia na'i} ("my belief does not apply here") be used for this?
>
>mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
Not sure. Robin last night suggested {ia daicu'i}: *someone's* belief,
not necessarily mine.

I dunno that either really does the job yet, but they're worth considering.

~mark

On 12/21/05, Mark E. Shoulson <mark@kli.org> wrote:
> >
> Not sure. Robin last night suggested {ia daicu'i}: *someone's* belief,
> not necessarily mine.

If I had to guess at the {dai}/{dainai} scale I would have said
that if {dai} is "I share this attitude with you (or someone else)"
then {dainai} is "I have this attitude on my own, not shared with
you/someone else", so I'm not sure how {daicu'i} could distance
me from the attitude, maybe more like "I take this attitude whether
you or anyone else does".

({na'i} would simply deny that I'm expressing anything on the
scale in question, without bringing anyone else into it.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

A few comments:

(1) I would prefer the English translations to be in idiomatic English
rather than in translationese. Some of them already are, some aren't.

(2) cu'i: "neither it nor its opposite apply". I would prefer
something in the positive, something like "some middle point between
it and its opposite applies", because cu'i doesn't really exclude that
the extremes might apply too, and "neither it nor its opposite apply"
doesn't really say that the midpoint does apply. It may happen that no
point on the scale applies, and then cu'i would not be appropriate.

(3)pei: "Asks the listener for an intensity for the preceding word".
Perhaps something like "asks the listener what intensity they would
assign to the preceding word", to make it clear that it is the
listener's attitude that is at stake, not the speaker's.

(4) e'epei mi'o darlu bau la lojban
Do you feel competent about us arguing in Lojban?

I'd say the Lojban is more like "how about we present our argument in Lojban?",
because "mi'o darlu" does not mean that we argue against one another,
it means that we both argue together for some position.

(None of these issues is a very big deal for me, so I'm voting "agree" anyway,
but if they can be addressed that would be a plus.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sep 29, 2008, at 12:30 , Eimi wrote:

>
> Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>
> Author: Eimi
>
>> Use this thread to discuss the page:: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>
> I like the general direction, but the definition of {pei} doesn't
> seem adequate. In particular, the definition have any indication
> (to my reading) that when {pei} is applied to a UI, it is the
> listener's emotion and not the speaker's that is being asked about.

I'd say go ahead and fix that. Likely an oversight.

> Similarly, the {fi'i pei} example only works if the same reversal
> applies to CAI. The Book doesn't mention that, so it is a change,
> though I think it is an entirely proper one to make.

Doesn't mention what?
When asked in the context of discourse, ``pei'' acts like other Lojban
question words --- it requests the respondent to ``fill in the
blank'', in this case with an appropriate attitudinal describing the
respondent's feeling about the referent expression

The CLL specifically says that {pei} is about the listener's feelings,
regardless of whether UI or CAI is used in the response.

> Finally, the meaning of {pei} *not* after a UI (or CAI) has always
> been considered a question not just about intensity, but more of a
> "What attitudinal belongs here?", and the stated definition here
> doesn't seem to include that at all.

I'm not sure where that usage came from. I certainly don't recall
adding that portion to my section, nor would I have. Merging the
usages of {no'e} and {cu'e} strikes me as particularly bad. Emotives
should not have any bearing on the logicality of a statement. (I
realize that I'm largely out on my own here with that viewpoint.)

mu'o mi'e bancus

Ted Reed scripsit:

> >Finally, the meaning of {pei} *not* after a UI (or CAI) has always
> >been considered a question not just about intensity, but more of a
> >"What attitudinal belongs here?", and the stated definition here
> >doesn't seem to include that at all.
>
> I'm not sure where that usage came from. I certainly don't recall
> adding that portion to my section, nor would I have. Merging the
> usages of {no'e} and {cu'e} strikes me as particularly bad. Emotives
> should not have any bearing on the logicality of a statement. (I
> realize that I'm largely out on my own here with that viewpoint.)

Cu'e is the question "which modal or tense?" Pei is the question
"which attitudinal?" Pei can function as a UI question or as a CAI
question, as the difference between UI and CAI is fairly artificial.
So adding it to an existing UI says "What is the strength of this
attitude in you?" whereas using it without an existing UI to attach
to means "What is your prevailing attitude?"

(No'e asserts a neutral attitude and has nothing to do with questions.)

--
Some people open all the Windows; John Cowan
wise wives welcome the spring cowan@ccil.org
by moving the Unix. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
--ad for Unix Book Units (U.K.)
(see http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/unix3image.gif)

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 10:46 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> Ted Reed scripsit:
>
>> >Finally, the meaning of {pei} *not* after a UI (or CAI) has always
>> >been considered a question not just about intensity, but more of a
>> >"What attitudinal belongs here?", and the stated definition here
>> >doesn't seem to include that at all.
>>
>> I'm not sure where that usage came from. I certainly don't recall
>> adding that portion to my section, nor would I have. Merging the
>> usages of {no'e} and {cu'e} strikes me as particularly bad. Emotives
>> should not have any bearing on the logicality of a statement. (I
>> realize that I'm largely out on my own here with that viewpoint.)
>
> Cu'e is the question "which modal or tense?" Pei is the question
> "which attitudinal?" Pei can function as a UI question or as a CAI
> question, as the difference between UI and CAI is fairly artificial.
> So adding it to an existing UI says "What is the strength of this
> attitude in you?" whereas using it without an existing UI to attach
> to means "What is your prevailing attitude?"
>
> (No'e asserts a neutral attitude and has nothing to do with questions.)

Sorry, I meant cu'i, not cu'e.

-bancus

Theodore Reed scripsit:

> Sorry, I meant cu'i, not cu'e.

I still don't understand your point.

--
What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the John Cowan
sound of a Wwall that people have stopped cowan@ccil.org
banging their head against? --Larry http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 11:13 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> Theodore Reed scripsit:
>
>> Sorry, I meant cu'i, not cu'e.
>
> I still don't understand your point.

I'm referring to this:

"These definitions are much more generic than the originals, allowing
such usage as "ta barda cu'i", which is functionally equivilent to "ta
no'e barda"."

This strikes me as a *bad* change to make, especially if you carry it
through with the other CAIs, or with NAI.

mu'o

On Thu, 2 Oct 2008, Ted Reed wrote:

> Similarly, the {fi'i pei} example only works if the same reversal
> applies to CAI. The Book doesn't mention that, so it is a change,
> though I think it is an entirely proper one to make.
>
>
> Doesn't mention what?
>
> When asked in the context of discourse, ``pei'' acts like other Lojban
> question words --- it requests the respondent to ``fill in the blank'', in
> this case with an appropriate attitudinal describing the respondent's feeling
> about the referent expression
>
> The CLL specifically says that {pei} is about the listener's feelings,
> regardless of whether UI or CAI is used in the response.

The point is that canonically, {je'e pei} means "I understand; how do you
feel about the fact that I understand?", while the more useful interpretation
(and the one that the examples matched) makes it mean "Do you understand?".
The feelings of the listener are being queried in both cases, but {je'e} is in
COI, not in UI, so unless there's something special going on, the vocative
still applies to the speaker, not the listener.
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

My major? It's Underwater Fire Protection.

Adam D. Lopresto scripsit:

> The point is that canonically, {je'e pei} means "I understand; how do you
> feel about the fact that I understand?", while the more useful
> interpretation
> (and the one that the examples matched) makes it mean "Do you understand?".

Ah. In that case I should think "je'e xu" would be the Right Thing,
as you are asking for a truth-value judgment, not a feeling judgment.

--
Is not a patron, my Lord Chesterfield, John Cowan
one who looks with unconcern on a man http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
struggling for life in the water, and when cowan@ccil.org
he has reached ground encumbers him with help?
--Samuel Johnson

On Fri, 3 Oct 2008, John Cowan wrote:

> Adam D. Lopresto scripsit:
>
>> The point is that canonically, {je'e pei} means "I understand; how do you
>> feel about the fact that I understand?", while the more useful
>> interpretation
>> (and the one that the examples matched) makes it mean "Do you understand?".
>
> Ah. In that case I should think "je'e xu" would be the Right Thing,
> as you are asking for a truth-value judgment, not a feeling judgment.

I considered that, but it doesn't work either. It works out to "Do I
understand?".
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

Some people wouldn't recognize subtlety if you hit them over the head with it.

Adam D. Lopresto scripsit:

> >Ah. In that case I should think "je'e xu" would be the Right Thing,
> >as you are asking for a truth-value judgment, not a feeling judgment.
>
> I considered that, but it doesn't work either. It works out to "Do I
> understand?".

Yes, you're right. It's a real hole in the system, and may require a new
question cmavo to be allocated.

--
What asininity could I have uttered John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
that they applaud me thus? http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
--Phocion, Greek orator

I don't understand the probem in CAI/NAI being used to scale or make a
question of words other than UIs. That should be the default
interpretation from a naive reading of the formal grammar. The CAI is
directly attatched to the preceding word, much like BAhE is attatched
to the word that follows. Why should one impose an unnatural
interpretation, given that the natural one is the most useful?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 2:41 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't understand the probem in CAI/NAI being used to scale or make a
> question of words other than UIs. That should be the default
> interpretation from a naive reading of the formal grammar. The CAI is
> directly attatched to the preceding word, much like BAhE is attatched
> to the word that follows. Why should one impose an unnatural
> interpretation, given that the natural one is the most useful?

Given your interpretation, how does one ask for a simple UI? As in
"How do you feel?" I strongly reject the notion that UI and CAI should
be used for anything but expressing emotions and attitudes.

mi'e bancus

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 6:49 PM, Theodore Reed <ted.reed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Given your interpretation, how does one ask for a simple UI? As in
> "How do you feel?"

UIs can be used for a lot of other things besides expressing feelings.
For example, you can ask about opinions {pe'i pei}, or gossip {ti'e
pei}, or direct observations {za'a pei}, or agreement {ie pei}, or
permission {.e'a pei}, or whether something is the only relevant thing
{po'o pei}, etc. etc. So a plain {pei} is rather vague and it's not a
bad idea to give a hint of what kind of answer you're expecting to
get. If you are asking about an emotional state, then perhaps you can
ask {pei ro'i}. But you can go with plain {pei} too if context helps
your listener know what you're expecting.

> I strongly reject the notion that UI and CAI should
> be used for anything but expressing emotions and attitudes.

Well, {pei} is a question, not really an emotion or an attitude. All
{pei} does is say "please feel in this blank with something from CAI
(or eventually from UI or from NAI) so that the result is something
you would say. That's how practically all questions in Lojban work.
The only exception is {xu}, which should have been a member of NA for
it to behave regularly.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Friday 03 October 2008 17:24:09 John Cowan wrote:
> Adam D. Lopresto scripsit:
> > >Ah. In that case I should think "je'e xu" would be the Right Thing,
> > >as you are asking for a truth-value judgment, not a feeling judgment.
> >
> > I considered that, but it doesn't work either. It works out to "Do I
> > understand?".
>
> Yes, you're right. It's a real hole in the system, and may require a new
> question cmavo to be allocated.

How about "je'e dai xu"?

Pierre

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

>
> How about "je'e dai xu"?

I think {je'e pei} is fine for "OK?", "Roger?", "Got it?", "Will you
say {je'e}?"

If you must, you can add a {mi}: {je'e pei mi}, "Do you roger me?",
but that's a bit redundant, because of course I will expect your
answer to be addressed to me in any case.

{je'e dai pei} also works in a way, but it's more empathic, like "are
we OK with this?". It's an invitation to share in the rogering.

{xu} doesn't seem to work here, because {xu} needs a bridi to confim
or disconfirm, and there is no bridi in {je'e}, no proposition to
affirm or deny. Mixing an acknowledgement and a question in the same
breath seems odd. Perhaps it means "Got you, but is it true?", where
the co'e that xu is questioning is left unstated, but I would rather
separate the two for clarity: {je'e .i ku'i xu co'e}.

The answer to {xu} is ja'a/na (co'e/go'i).
The answer to {pei} is ja'ai/nai, or a more nuanced
cu'i/ru'e/sai/cai/nairu'e/naisai/naicai

So je'epei is answered by je'e(ja'ai) or je'enai (or je'ecu'i, je'eru'e, etc.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 10:56:07AM -0700, arj wrote:
>
> I'm not entirely happy with this.
>
> * The Impact section appeals to usage ("This doesn't seem to be exactly in line with usage"), but no analysis of usage appears elsewhere in the section.
>
> * The definitions refer to "the previous word", but this is unnecessary, because CAI is an indicator, and as such is covered by the same preface as ordinary UI cmavo.
>
> If there are no objections, I'll start rewriting the section next week.

Okay, I've posted a new version of it. It's basically CLL with dictionary-style wording + examples.

I can make it less conservative if you want, but I think we need strong usage data to accept COI + CAI as something special. And I think we need _overwhelming_ usage data to accept a bare CAI as anything except ge'e + CAI.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Confusion among -ate ~ -ant pairs is even more prominate, since both
are legitimant suffixes. --Adam Albright

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 06:17:44AM -0700, arj wrote:
>
> Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>
> Author: arj
>
> I am trying to find usage data of CAI that is not attached to a UI. Unfortunately, such usages seems to completely drowned by the typical case, that is, UI+CAI strings.
>
> Anyone able to come up with a search that can show "bare" CAI?
>
> arj@gavagai:~/Lojban$ grep -c -w "cai" all_logs.txt
> 257

Boy, *that* was fun:

cat /home/www/lojban/irclog/all_logs.txt | \
perl -n -e 'm{(?<!.aeiou.aeiou)\s+cai} && print' | \
perl -n -e 'm{(?<!.aeiou..aeiou)\s+cai} && print' | \
perl -n -e 'm{(?<!.aeiou.aeiou)cai} && print' | \
perl -n -e 'm{(?<!.aeiou..aeiou)cai} && print'

Replace "cai" with whatever in all four places as needed.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 07:09:10AM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 06:17:44AM -0700, arj wrote:
> >
> > Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
> >
> > Author: arj
> >
> > I am trying to find usage data of CAI that is not attached to a UI. Unfortunately, such usages seems to completely drowned by the typical case, that is, UI+CAI strings.
> >
> > Anyone able to come up with a search that can show "bare" CAI?
> >
> > arj@gavagai:~/Lojban$ grep -c -w "cai" all_logs.txt
> > 257
>
> Boy, *that* was fun:
>
> bash script with four perl invocations removed
>
> Replace "cai" with whatever in all four places as needed.

Thank you! While not perfect, that was very helpful for weeding out all those "ui cai" and whatnot.

Now for the findings from the IRC logs. The question is, do CAI modify brivla in a way that is equivalent to NAhE? In other words, is "ta barda cu'i" == "ta no'e barda"?

04 Jun 2003 14:54:58 <rab_spir> i mi ca tadni le turnycuxna saske i ri cinri sai
09 Feb 2007 05:38:54 <cizra> .oi lenku sai
25 Nov 2004 12:42:48 <Broca> mi nelci sai le narju pe le mi skami poi tergu'i ca le nu le diksro cu zenba
23 Feb 2008 09:24:44 <mungojelly> .i malgerna cai
20 Aug 2006 16:24:08 <clsn> tatpi ru'e

These are examples of a CAI that modifies a brivla. If you try to interpret these lines by giving "sai" approximately the same meaning as "je'a", the meaning doesn't change much. The possible exception is ".i malgerna cai", since malgerna doesn't appear to be scalar; something is either a f***ing grammar, or it is not. In other words, "cai" here expresses an attitude to "malgerna", it does not express the degree to which "malgerna" is just that.

So, IMHO, usage is either silent on this question, or it is very slightly skewed against CAI as a scalar indicator of predicate values. In either case, the CLL takes precedence.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Kortet Deres er beholdt.

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 03:06:31PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 10:56:07AM -0700, arj wrote:
> >
> > I'm not entirely happy with this.
> >
> > * The Impact section appeals to usage ("This doesn't seem to be exactly in line with usage"), but no analysis of usage appears elsewhere in the section.
> >
> > * The definitions refer to "the previous word", but this is unnecessary, because CAI is an indicator, and as such is covered by the same preface as ordinary UI cmavo.
> >
> > If there are no objections, I'll start rewriting the section next week.
>
> Okay, I've posted a new version of it. It's basically CLL with dictionary-style wording + examples.
>
> I can make it less conservative if you want, but I think we need strong usage data to accept COI + CAI as something special.

The usage data are in.

I find 31 occurrences of "je'e pei" in the IRC corpus. While that may not seem like a lot, it makes up 3% of all occurrences of "pei"!

I have not studied the 31 sentences closely, but I think we can agree that in the vast majority of cases, those who used "je'e pei" did NOT mean "I understand; how do you feel?", but rather a vocative question: "Did you understand?" We can also be fairly certain that the rules as they are now does not allow this interpretation.

So, how to deal with this issue?

a) Merge COI into UI. This is not a good solution, because utterances like "coi .alis", which are currently valid and extremely commonplace, becomes ungrammatical.

b) Redefine CAI so that they not only can indicate the scalar value of UI, but also of COI. This is the solution advocated by Adam.

c) Keep the status quo and accept that a very common part of the language has sometimes been used incorrectly, even by competent speakers.

I am in favour of c), albeit not strongly. To me, b) seems like an ad-hoc interpretation that is not represented in the syntax. A free modifier should be a free modifier, period.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Learn languages!
The more languages you know, the more incomprehensible you can get.

On Oct 26, 2008, at 9:05, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 03:06:31PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 10:56:07AM -0700, arj wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm not entirely happy with this.
>>>
>>> * The Impact section appeals to usage ("This doesn't seem to be
>>> exactly in line with usage"), but no analysis of usage appears
>>> elsewhere in the section.
>>>
>>> * The definitions refer to "the previous word", but this is
>>> unnecessary, because CAI is an indicator, and as such is covered
>>> by the same preface as ordinary UI cmavo.
>>>
>>> If there are no objections, I'll start rewriting the section next
>>> week.
>>
>> Okay, I've posted a new version of it. It's basically CLL with
>> dictionary-style wording + examples.
>>
>> I can make it less conservative if you want, but I think we need
>> strong usage data to accept COI + CAI as something special.
>
> The usage data are in.
>
> I find 31 occurrences of "je'e pei" in the IRC corpus. While that
> may not seem like a lot, it makes up 3% of all occurrences of "pei"!
>
> I have not studied the 31 sentences closely, but I think we can
> agree that in the vast majority of cases, those who used "je'e pei"
> did NOT mean "I understand; how do you feel?", but rather a vocative
> question: "Did you understand?" We can also be fairly certain that
> the rules as they are now does not allow this interpretation.
>
> So, how to deal with this issue?
>
> a) Merge COI into UI. This is not a good solution, because
> utterances like "coi .alis", which are currently valid and extremely
> commonplace, becomes ungrammatical.
>
> b) Redefine CAI so that they not only can indicate the scalar value
> of UI, but also of COI. This is the solution advocated by Adam.
>
> c) Keep the status quo and accept that a very common part of the
> language has sometimes been used incorrectly, even by competent
> speakers.
>
> I am in favour of c), albeit not strongly. To me, b) seems like an
> ad-hoc interpretation that is not represented in the syntax. A free
> modifier should be a free modifier, period.

I agree for the most part. I do think that there is clearly a lack in
the language as-it-is that is demonstrated by the ad hoc usage. I
think this is something we need to fill, whether it's through B or
some other mechanism.

mu'o mi'e bancus

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>
> b) Redefine CAI so that they not only can indicate the scalar value of UI, but also of COI. This is the solution advocated by Adam.

Not only of COI, but any word they follow. Particularly useful ones
are "NA CAI" and "NAhE CAI":

na ru'e / na'e ru'e : "almost"
na sai / na'e sai : "not at all"
ja'a ru'e / ja'e ru'e: "barely"
ja'a sai / ja'e sai : "definitely"

You didn't find examples of them, but I'm sure I have used them all
more than once.

> To me, b) seems like an ad-hoc interpretation that is not represented in the syntax. A free modifier should be a free modifier, period.

Why would they stop being free modifiers if they modify the word they
follow? Isn't {po'o} a free modifier, for example? I have the opposite
reading of the syntax you seem to have: the syntax practically
requires that they modify the word they follow. They attach to the
preceding word as tightly as BAhE does to the following one, in both
cases leaving the original word working syntactically just as when
unmodified. The syntax is very much that of a word modifier.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 10:23:46PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> >
> > To me, b) seems like an ad-hoc interpretation that is not represented in the syntax. A free modifier should be a free modifier, period.
>
> Why would they stop being free modifiers if they modify the word they
> follow? Isn't {po'o} a free modifier, for example? I have the opposite
> reading of the syntax you seem to have: the syntax practically
> requires that they modify the word they follow. They attach to the
> preceding word as tightly as BAhE does to the following one, in both
> cases leaving the original word working syntactically just as when
> unmodified. The syntax is very much that of a word modifier.

To quote Adam:

> The point is that canonically, {je'e pei} means "I understand; how do you
> feel about the fact that I understand?", while the more useful interpretation
> (and the one that the examples matched) makes it mean "Do you understand?".
> The feelings of the listener are being queried in both cases, but {je'e} is
> in COI, not in UI, so unless there's something special going on, the vocative
> still applies to the speaker, not the listener.

I saw earlier in the discussion that you

> ... think {je'e pei} is fine for "OK?", "Roger?", "Got it?", "Will you
> say {je'e}?"

but you did not give an argument why this is so, and you seem to be in a minority position on this.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
This program posts news to billions of machines throughout the galaxy.
Your message will cost the net enough to bankrupt your entire planet.
As a result your species will be sold into slavery. Be sure you know
what you are doing. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? yn y

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 10:23:46PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> >
> > b) Redefine CAI so that they not only can indicate the scalar value of UI, but also of COI. This is the solution advocated by Adam.
>
> Not only of COI, but any word they follow. Particularly useful ones
> are "NA CAI" and "NAhE CAI":
>
> na ru'e / na'e ru'e : "almost"
> na sai / na'e sai : "not at all"
> ja'a ru'e / ja'e ru'e: "barely"
> ja'a sai / ja'e sai : "definitely"
>
> You didn't find examples of them, but I'm sure I have used them all
> more than once.

As far as I know, this issue has not been brought up before.

I see two possibilities here, depending on the truth-functional effects of CAI after NA or NAhE. The question is, is there any situation in which "na broda" can be false and "na sai broda" can be true, or vice versa?

If there is no such situation and they must always have the same truth value, it seems that your examples are nothing but an attitude towards the negation/affirmation, and as such needs no special treatment.

If you assert that there COULD be differences in truth value, that is a) surprising to a CLL-taught Lojbanist and b) undermines the integrity of the negation/connective system.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Kortet Deres er beholdt.

Arnt Richard Johansen scripsit:

> I see two possibilities here, depending on the truth-functional effects
> of CAI after NA or NAhE. The question is, is there any situation
> in which "na broda" can be false and "na sai broda" can be true,
> or vice versa?

There had better not be. The whole point of NA is that it's
contradictory, not scalar: "true" and "false", in the sense of "na"
and "ja'a", are absolute predicates, like "pregnant" or "equal to four".

NAhE is another matter: it *is* scalar. Currently we cover only four
points on the scale (somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative,
and extremely negative), rather than the seven made possible by CAI.
Still, historically CAI has been about emotional intensity (it was
born when some Loglan attitudinals that differed only in intensity were
merged into a single UI and CAI was added to discriminate between them.
Rather than giving CAI a non-emotional meaning after NAhE, I'd rather
add the missing three scale points (slightly negative, slightly positive,
and extremely positive) as separate cmavo in NAhE.

Furthermore, blending the attitudinal and non-attitudinal systems is
a Bad Thing IMHO. Attitudinals express things, whereas the rest of
Lojban states them. In a fully fluent speaker, the attitudinals would
be ingrained, the direct expressions of emotion, and that includes CAI.
It should be possible to say CAI after any word without affecting
truth value.

--
John Cowan http://ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org
We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals;
more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more
leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of
the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. --Samuel Gompers

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:01 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> It should be possible to say CAI after any word without affecting
> truth value.

tcetce tugni

mu'i mi'e bancus

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 10:23:46PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > To me, b) seems like an ad-hoc interpretation that is not represented in the syntax. A free modifier should be a free modifier, period.
>>
>> Why would they stop being free modifiers if they modify the word they
>> follow? Isn't {po'o} a free modifier, for example? I have the opposite
>> reading of the syntax you seem to have: the syntax practically
>> requires that they modify the word they follow. They attach to the
>> preceding word as tightly as BAhE does to the following one, in both
>> cases leaving the original word working syntactically just as when
>> unmodified. The syntax is very much that of a word modifier.
>
> To quote Adam:
>
>> The point is that canonically, {je'e pei} means "I understand; how do you
>> feel about the fact that I understand?", while the more useful interpretation
>> (and the one that the examples matched) makes it mean "Do you understand?".
>> The feelings of the listener are being queried in both cases, but {je'e} is
>> in COI, not in UI, so unless there's something special going on, the vocative
>> still applies to the speaker, not the listener.

Yes, I had read that, and I agree that's more or less what can be
deduced from CLL.

I was objecting to "To me, b) seems like an ad-hoc interpretation
that is not represented in the syntax. A free modifier should be a
free modifier, period."

How does the *syntax*, as opposed to the CLL text, support the notion
that the intensifiers intensify UIs only? To my mind the syntax, as
opposed to the CLLtext, supports he opposite notion, that they
intensify whtever word they follow.

> I saw earlier in the discussion that you
>
>> ... think {je'e pei} is fine for "OK?", "Roger?", "Got it?", "Will you
>> say {je'e}?"
>
> but you did not give an argument why this is so, and you seem to be in a minority position on this.

I argued from the syntax, {pei} attaches to the preceding word and
acts as a blank to be filled with ja'ai/nai, or with a more nuanced
cu'i/ru'e/sai/cai/etc.

(There's also the argument from usefulness and usage, but my concern
was the one from syntax, which I was surprized you said points in the
opposite direction.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 4:17 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>
> I see two possibilities here, depending on the truth-functional effects of CAI after NA or NAhE. The question is, is there any situation in which "na broda" can be false and "na sai broda" can be true, or vice versa?

Is there any situation in which "not" can be false and "not at all"
true, or vice versa?
Is there any situation in which "not" can be false and "almost" true,
or vice versa?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Jorge Llambías scripsit:

> How does the *syntax*, as opposed to the CLL text, support the notion
> that the intensifiers intensify UIs only? To my mind the syntax, as
> opposed to the CLLtext, supports he opposite notion, that they
> intensify whtever word they follow.

Syntactic grouping isn't always semantic reality. Historically the
syntax went from UI to UI CAI to UI CAI.

--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan
I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them
alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag
went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am
Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider. --Bilbo to Smaug

Jorge Llambías scripsit:

> Is there any situation in which "not" can be false and "not at all"
> true, or vice versa?
> Is there any situation in which "not" can be false and "almost" true,
> or vice versa?

Sure. But not with NA negation, which is explicitly logical contradictory
negation.

--
The experiences of the past show John Cowan
that there has always been a discrepancy cowan@ccil.org
between plans and performance. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
--Emperor Hirohito, August 1945

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:01 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
>
> Rather than giving CAI a non-emotional meaning after NAhE, I'd rather
> add the missing three scale points (slightly negative, slightly positive,
> and extremely positive) as separate cmavo in NAhE.

Even if CAI were limited to modifying UIs only, it would not be
limited to intensifying emotions because there are other things in UI
that are not emotions and can be intensified with CAI. There seems to
be no reason for CAI to carry an "emotional" component in addition to
its intensifier function. (In my opinion, if anything Lojban needs
fewer cmavo, not more.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 05:44:55PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:01 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> >
> > Rather than giving CAI a non-emotional meaning after NAhE, I'd rather
> > add the missing three scale points (slightly negative, slightly positive,
> > and extremely positive) as separate cmavo in NAhE.
>
> Even if CAI were limited to modifying UIs only, it would not be
> limited to intensifying emotions because there are other things in UI
> that are not emotions and can be intensified with CAI.

For precisely this reason, I have used the term "attitude" in the definitions, e.g. "a weak attitude" for ru'e. I hope this is satisfactory.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
If you connect yourself across a 2000V supply, the very best you can
hope for is something like a serious heart attack with severe burns
thrown in for good measure. IT'S MUCH MORE LIKELY THAT YOU'LL BE DEAD.
-- John Nelson: Power Supplies & Control Units, in The VHF/UHF DX Book

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:35 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
>
> Syntactic grouping isn't always semantic reality.

Agreed, though the goal should be that it does, as much as possible.

In any case, if one is going to argue from the syntax, then the syntax
would seem to support that the intensifiers intensify the preceding
word, that's all I'm trying to say with respect to syntax.

> Historically the syntax went from UI to UI CAI to UI CAI.

OK, so in the current state of the language, CAI is allowed after any
word, not just after UI. (And that's a good thing, because UIs ar not
the only words that can use different intensities.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:35 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías scripsit:
>> Is there any situation in which "not" can be false and "almost" true,
>> or vice versa?
>
> Sure. But not with NA negation, which is explicitly logical contradictory
> negation.

So how does one say in Lojban "it is almost the case that", and how
does the truth value differ from "it is not the case that"?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:54 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 05:44:55PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
>>
>> Even if CAI were limited to modifying UIs only, it would not be
>> limited to intensifying emotions because there are other things in UI
>> that are not emotions and can be intensified with CAI.
>
> For precisely this reason, I have used the term "attitude" in the definitions, e.g. "a weak attitude" for ru'e. I hope this is satisfactory.

UIs are not limited to attitudes either, though "attitudes" is more
encompassing than "emotions". po'o and ji'a don't indicate attitudes,
for example. But I'm not quibbling about the language used in the
definition. What I don't like is the notion that CAIs could only be
used as intensifiers of UIs, whatever they are called.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 06:07:03PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 5:54 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 05:44:55PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> >>
> >> Even if CAI were limited to modifying UIs only, it would not be
> >> limited to intensifying emotions because there are other things in UI
> >> that are not emotions and can be intensified with CAI.
> >
> > For precisely this reason, I have used the term "attitude" in the definitions, e.g. "a weak attitude" for ru'e. I hope this is satisfactory.
>
> UIs are not limited to attitudes either, though "attitudes" is more
> encompassing than "emotions". po'o and ji'a don't indicate attitudes,
> for example. But I'm not quibbling about the language used in the
> definition. What I don't like is the notion that CAIs could only be
> used as intensifiers of UIs, whatever they are called.

I would like to retract the point I made about the syntax: CAI embeds itself as a free modifier in a UI clause, just as it does with any other word.

As for the notion that CAIs can only be used as intensifiers of UI — I'm not arguing that. What I'm arguing is that CAIs are a very specific kind of intensifier: "to emphasize a point about which you feel strongly" or "indicate that you don't care" (CLL p. 305). If that is an adequate description of what you mean when you say "na sai" or "ja'a ru'e", then we have no disagreement. If you think this is something _more_ than just emphasis, then this would be a change to the CLL, and as you know, something I'm very reluctant to do.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Evan, a Quiz Bowl reject, nevertheless knows more than what's good for
him. The son of deposed royalty from some obscure nation whose name is
probably only known to himself, Evan is the life of the party when the
party's over. — Leon Lin: Kissing the Buddha's Feet

Jorge Llambías scripsit:

> So how does one say in Lojban "it is almost the case that", and how
> does the truth value differ from "it is not the case that"?

With scalar negation, possibly enhanced.

--
Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child John Cowan
could understand this report. Run out cowan@ccil.org
and find me a four-year-old child. I http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
can't make head or tail out of it.
--Rufus T. Firefly on government reports

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>
> As for the notion that CAIs can only be used as intensifiers of UI — I'm not arguing that. What I'm arguing is that CAIs are a very specific kind of intensifier: "to emphasize a point about which you feel strongly" or "indicate that you don't care" (CLL p. 305). If that is an adequate description of what you mean when you say "na sai" or "ja'a ru'e", then we have no disagreement.

No, that doesn't sound quite adequate for what I mean. I may have no
feelings about it at all and still need a nuanced word. Or I may feel
very strongly that something *almost* happened, or *barely* happened,
in which case I would use "na ru'e" or "ja'a ru'e", not becuse my
feelings about it are weak, but because the negation or affirmation is
weak. I might emphasize "ru'e" with "ba'e ru'e" (which BTW is an
emphatic ru'e for the preceding word, not a weak emphasis of the
following word. BAhE is one of the few selmaho that can't be CAI-ed).

>If you think this is something _more_ than just emphasis, then this would be a change to the CLL, and as you know, something I'm very reluctant to do.

Yes. I do understand that for some of you, if it's written it's
automatically The Right Thing. I'm not vetoing anything in any case.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 6:55 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías scripsit:
>
>> So how does one say in Lojban "it is almost the case that", and how
>> does the truth value differ from "it is not the case that"?
>
> With scalar negation, possibly enhanced.

I think the difference between "na" and "na'e" is merely one of scope.
Otherwise, they are logically equivalent. But we can leave that
discussion for the NA/NAhE section. Here's an example where "almost"
needs the scope of NA, not of NAhE:

mi na ru'e catra ro lo manti
I almost killed all the ants.
(It is almost the case that: I killed all the ants.)

mi na'e ru'e catra ro lo manti
I almost-killed all the ants.
(Each ant is such, that I almost killed it.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

John Cowan, On 27/10/2008 20:01:
> Furthermore, blending the attitudinal and non-attitudinal systems is
> a Bad Thing IMHO. Attitudinals express things, whereas the rest of
> Lojban states them. In a fully fluent speaker, the attitudinals would
> be ingrained, the direct expressions of emotion, and that includes CAI.
> It should be possible to say CAI after any word without affecting
> truth value.

The difference between "They died" and "They fucking died" is this kind of attitudinal element. But there's a natural tendency for an emotional intensifier to become a scalar intensifier, so that "It's fucking big" can mean — can imply — "It's very big". Cf. "A: 'How big is it?' B: 'Fucking big.'".

I make this observation without taking a position on the UI debate.

--And.

And Rosta scripsit:

> The difference between "They died" and "They fucking died" is this kind of
> attitudinal element. But there's a natural tendency for an emotional
> intensifier to become a scalar intensifier, so that "It's fucking big" can
> mean — can imply — "It's very big". Cf. "A: 'How big is it?' B: 'Fucking
> big.'".

Fair enough. However, I can't imagine this happening to "goddammit",
still less to the X:: I use to express extreme disgust. At least
"fucking big" is formally parallel to "mad big" (not grammatical StdAE
until very recent years) and other Adj-Adj compounds.

--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan
I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them
alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag
went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am
Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider. --Bilbo to Smaug

As regards the issue with {je'epei}...

On the one hand, the CLL is pretty clear that the meaning is not the meaning that we've been using it for. OTOH, the meaning we've been using is an awfully important one. At the moment, we can't even ask obvious things like "are you ready to receive" or "did you copy". The best we can do is {be'e} for {*re'ipei}, and that isn't extensible.

None of the above is other than obvious.

I was thinking that the meaning we're after with {je'epei} is really better expressed with {je'edaipei}... But no, Eimi corrected me: {pei} has its own {dai} built in. This then brings up the question regarding whether {dai} can be used to modify COI, which then revolves upon whether or not {dai} makes any sense whatsoever on its own. And if not, maybe {dai} should be moved into CAI, if we accept that CAI can modify COI and not mean {COI ge'e CAI}.

The grammar of UI and CAI is nearly identical. Maybe they should be conflated. If not, and CAI is permitted to modify other words directly, we need to give better thought as to what belongs in CAI and what in UI. {dai} would probably go into CAI then. What about {ro'aeiou, re'e}?

I think some of the issue is that {pei} isn't as simple as we like to pretend. As a fill-in-the-blank question, it seems like other Lojban questions, but it's also being used (or claimed), when used alone, to mean {ge'e pei} which, it is claimed, means "and how do you feel about that." But it doesn't! {ge'e pei} means "and on some unspecified scale, are you on the upside or the downside?" It's a meaningless question and an impossible one to answer. We're making {pei} do double- (triple-, actually) duty, both as a fillin holder for CAI (*and* for NAI!) and *also* a fillin holder for UI.

So. To make this make sense, first of all, I think for simple clarity, we need a question-word in NAI, to go along with {nai} and {ja'ai}. Even if we do nothing else, this is a missing piece as much as {ja'ai} is.

Second, let it be agreed that one way or another, we absolutely must have a way to ask COI questions, whether with pei or with something else. To head off the suggestion, I would probably say that if {va'ai} is the questioning NAI, {je'e va'ai} would mean "Do I understand you?", unless a specific exception is made.

Does {pei} need to be teased out between UI and CAI? If not, can we make an exception for bare {pei} on the grounds that {ge'e pei} is utterly unanswerable? (by exception I mean that even if we consider a CAI not preceded by a UI to be ge'eCAI, if the CAI is {pei} it could have another meaning, like the one searched for here, much as {mi'e} is exceptional among COI).

~mark

Some more insightness...

The issue is that COI, like UI, has an inherent direction. COI always applies from speaker to audience, just as UI always applies to the speaker. We allow the directionality of UI to be changed when {pei} is used; UIpei becomes "would you want to say UI, possibly modified, to express YOUR feelings?" We do something similar with {dai}, but that's more how I feel about how you feel... ({dai} is incomplete anyway; another issue).

COI questions are much the same: "Do you want to use this COI to me?" where the COI is things like {je'e, re'i, vi'o...}. The problem is not so much with {pei} but with that special thing {pei} does, of turning UIs around. We want to be able to turn COIs around too. With {va'ai} as the questioning NAI, {je'e va'ai} would still have to mean "Do I understand", not "do YOU understand" because it doesn't turn the COI around. That's what's needed. Some way of turning the COI around, or of defining circumstances under which that happens.

Dare I say {SE COI}? No, it would be a bad idea and break existing grammar probably.

I think "pei" is *the* basic Lojban question. All other question words
can be reduced to "pei".

The easiest one is "xu", which is just "je'u pei". Most others don't
have short forms:

je'u pei: "Is it true that ...?"
pe'i pei: "Do you think ...?"
la'a pei: "How likely is it that ...?"
.e'a pei: "May I ...?"
.e'o pei: "Would you like me to ...?"
.ai pei: "Will you ...?"

To understand "ge'e pei" we need to think of "ge'e" not so much as
"unspaecified emotion" but as "unstated emotion", unstated because
it's obvious from context, or because I'm expecting you to provide one
in the case of "pei". "ge'e" corresponds to "zo'e", "co'e", "do'e" of
other selma'o. They too are glossed as "unspecified", but what is
meant is "not stated explicitely". Once we read "ge'e pei" as "please
state the unstated emotion", all other questions fall into place too:

ma = zo'e pei
mo = co'e pei
xo = no'o pei
ji = ju'e pei
cu'e = do'e pei
fi'a = fai pei

and I don't know if I'm forgetting any.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 11:04 AM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think "pei" is *the* basic Lojban question. All other question words
> can be reduced to "pei".

Um, what?

> The easiest one is "xu", which is just "je'u pei". Most others don't
> have short forms:

Perhaps.

> je'u pei: "Is it true that ...?"
> pe'i pei: "Do you think ...?"
> la'a pei: "How likely is it that ...?"
> .e'a pei: "May I ...?"
> .e'o pei: "Would you like me to ...?"
> .ai pei: "Will you ...?"
>
> To understand "ge'e pei" we need to think of "ge'e" not so much as
> "unspaecified emotion" but as "unstated emotion", unstated because
> it's obvious from context, or because I'm expecting you to provide one
> in the case of "pei". "ge'e" corresponds to "zo'e", "co'e", "do'e" of
> other selma'o. They too are glossed as "unspecified", but what is
> meant is "not stated explicitely". Once we read "ge'e pei" as "please
> state the unstated emotion", all other questions fall into place too:

Agree.

> ma = zo'e pei
> mo = co'e pei
> xo = no'o pei
> ji = ju'e pei
> cu'e = do'e pei
> fi'a = fai pei

I do not agree.

Seriously?

Am I just missing something obvious here? This seems so obviously
wrong I don't understand how anyone could even suggest such a thing as
true.

".i ma cmene do"
"sai"
".y."

-- bancus

Jorge Llambas wrote:

> I think "pei" is *the* basic Lojban question. All other question words
> can be reduced to "pei".
>
Tempting, but it doesn't follow, not from the definition and usage we have.
> The easiest one is "xu", which is just "je'u pei". Most others don't
> have short forms:
>
> je'u pei: "Is it true that ...?"
> pe'i pei: "Do you think ...?"
> la'a pei: "How likely is it that ...?"
> .e'a pei: "May I ...?"
> .e'o pei: "Would you like me to ...?"
> .ai pei: "Will you ...?"
>
I can buy some of these. Possibly all.
> ma = zo'e pei
> mo = co'e pei
> xo = no'o pei
> ji = ju'e pei
> cu'e = do'e pei
> fi'a = fai pei
>
> and I don't know if I'm forgetting any.
>
That may be how you want it to work, making {pei} into "please state the
thingy of the selma'o of the word before me that applies." Basically
making {pei} like {kau}, signifying the selma'o that needs to be filled
in, and the actual content doesn't matter. But in that case, {.uipei}
no longer means "are you happy?" but it means precisely the same thing
as {.e'opei} and {la'apei} and all the rest: "Please state whatever UI
belongs here." And we know .uipei doesn't (and shouldn't) work like that.

It's all about the magic of {pei} turning UIs around, and how or if that
should apply to other words...

~mark

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Mark E. Shoulson <mark@kli.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías wrote:
>>
>> ma = zo'e pei
>> mo = co'e pei
>> xo = no'o pei
>> ji = ju'e pei
>> cu'e = do'e pei
>> fi'a = fai pei
>
> That may be how you want it to work, making {pei} into "please state the
> thingy of the selma'o of the word before me that applies." Basically making
> {pei} like {kau}, signifying the selma'o that needs to be filled in, and the
> actual content doesn't matter.

I didn't say the actual content doesn't matter. (In fact I don't
agreee that the actual content doesn't matter for "kau" either, but
that's another issue.) The content does matter when there is content,
as in je'upei, pe'ipei, e'apei, etc.

It's only when the word *doesn't* have content, that {pei} is used to
ask to put content into it. As in ge'epei. (And then zo'epei, co'epei,
etc.)

> But in that case, {.uipei} no longer means
> "are you happy?" but it means precisely the same thing as {.e'opei} and
> {la'apei} and all the rest: "Please state whatever UI belongs here."

No, because "ui" already has content, so (part of) the answer is
already suggested. Of course, you could respond "a'enai" to a "uipei"
question, just as you can espond "go'i fi la djan" to a question like
"xu do pu dunda le cukta la .alis". You may not want to respond
directly for whatever reason, so you could respond with something not
quite asked but still related and relevant.

> And we
> know .uipei doesn't (and shouldn't) work like that.

Agreed.

> It's all about the magic of {pei} turning UIs around, and how or if that
> should apply to other words...

I don't think pei turns anything around any more than other questions
do. Even if you don't buy my theory about zo'epei et al, every
question inverts the flow of information. "xu la djan pu klama le
zarci" is not like "la djan pu klama le zarci".
In one case, the sentence is used by the speaker to make an assertion.
In the other case, the sentence is proposed to the listener so that it
will be the listener who makes the assertion (or asserts some other
related relevant statement). It's the same with "je'upei" or
"pe'ipei" or "uipei". The attitudinal is not used by the speaker but
the listener is asked use it or a suitably modified form.

I think the "reversal" idea comes from the special way deictics behave
with questions. When a question is posed with the words "mi" or "do"
(or "ti", etc.) then their values have to be "calculated" before the
listener responds, so that by the nature of deictics the listener
won't be using the same words when responding, they will use the
values. But UIs don't have a hidden "mi" or a hidden "do" inside. "ui"
is not a short form of "mi gleki". It is not used to make the claim
that the speaker is happy. It is used to express happiness. Just as
"la djan cu klama le zarci" is used to make the claim that John goes
to the market. And in a question, any question, the speaker is not
using them in their usual way, but offering them to the listener so
that they use them or some suitable modification.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 3:13 PM, Theodore Reed <ted.reed@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 11:04 AM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> To understand "ge'e pei" we need to think of "ge'e" not so much as
>> "unspaecified emotion" but as "unstated emotion", unstated because
>> it's obvious from context, or because I'm expecting you to provide one
>> in the case of "pei".
>
> Agree.
>
>> ma = zo'e pei
>
> Am I just missing something obvious here? This seems so obviously
> wrong I don't understand how anyone could even suggest such a thing as
> true.
>
> ".i ma cmene do"
> "sai"
> ".y."

Just as "sai" is not a useful answer to "ge'epei", it is also not a
useful answer to "zo'epei". What "pei" does is ask you to fill the
empty place, in both cases.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Jorge Llambías scripsit:

> je'u pei: "Is it true that ...?"
> pe'i pei: "Do you think ...?"
> la'a pei: "How likely is it that ...?"
> .e'a pei: "May I ...?"
> .e'o pei: "Would you like me to ...?"
> .ai pei: "Will you ...?"

I agree with these; I'm not sure that "xu" is exactly the same as "je'u
pei", though.

> To understand "ge'e pei" we need to think of "ge'e" not so much as
> "unspaecified emotion" but as "unstated emotion", unstated because
> it's obvious from context, or because I'm expecting you to provide one
> in the case of "pei". "ge'e" corresponds to "zo'e", "co'e", "do'e" of
> other selma'o. They too are glossed as "unspecified", but what is
> meant is "not stated explicitely".

So far so good.

> Once we read "ge'e pei" as "please
> state the unstated emotion", all other questions fall into place too:
>
> ma = zo'e pei
> mo = co'e pei
> xo = no'o pei
> ji = ju'e pei
> cu'e = do'e pei
> fi'a = fai pei

I entirely disagree with those. "pei" is about emotion or emotional intensity:
it's inappropriate to extend it to questions outside the attitudinal world.

--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan
Consider the matter of Analytic Philosophy. Dennett and Bennett are well-known.
Dennett rarely or never cites Bennett, so Bennett rarely or never cites Dennett.
There is also one Dummett. By their works shall ye know them. However, just as
no trinities have fourth persons (Zeppo Marx notwithstanding), Bummett is hardly
known by his works. Indeed, Bummett does not exist. It is part of the function
of this and other e-mail messages, therefore, to do what they can to create him.

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 6:56 PM, John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías scripsit:
>
>> je'u pei: "Is it true that ...?"
>> pe'i pei: "Do you think ...?"
>> la'a pei: "How likely is it that ...?"
>> .e'a pei: "May I ...?"
>> .e'o pei: "Would you like me to ...?"
>> .ai pei: "Will you ...?"
>
> I agree with these; I'm not sure that "xu" is exactly the same as "je'u
> pei", though.

Even if they are not exactly identical, any difference is too subtle
to make a difference.

>> Once we read "ge'e pei" as "please
>> state the unstated emotion", all other questions fall into place too:
>>
>> ma = zo'e pei
>> mo = co'e pei
>> xo = no'o pei
>> ji = ju'e pei
>> cu'e = do'e pei
>> fi'a = fai pei
>
> I entirely disagree with those. "pei" is about emotion or emotional intensity:
> it's inappropriate to extend it to questions outside the attitudinal world.

Yes, if "pei" has an embedded "ro'i", they would not be right. But it
makes no sense whatsoever for "pei" to have an embedded "ro'i". Or at
least I don't see any point in it.

(In any case, obviously nobody is going to be using these combinations
when the single word is available. This is mostly just a theoretical
exercise to better understand "pei".)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 7:43 AM, arj <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> There are currently two people who have voted against this section.
>
> Can the two of you please re-evaluate the section, and if necessary, suggest possible changes?

I'm one of the three who voted in favor, but my vote was for the
previous version. My disagreement is with the comment that "je'e pei"
is an error. It's not worth half-vetoing the page for that but I can't
vote in favor either, so I ask that my vote not be counted.

BTW, there's a mismatch between the English and the Lojban in this example:

.ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
Do you agree that 2 in a set with 2 is a set with two members?

mi'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 10:24:45AM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 7:43 AM, arj <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
> >
> > There are currently two people who have voted against this section.
> >
> > Can the two of you please re-evaluate the section, and if necessary, suggest possible changes?
>
> I'm one of the three who voted in favor, but my vote was for the
> previous version. My disagreement is with the comment that "je'e pei"
> is an error. It's not worth half-vetoing the page for that but I can't
> vote in favor either, so I ask that my vote not be counted.

I would of course prefer to make you 100% happy, but I'm not sure how I could do that here. It seems intuitively obvious to me that {je'e pei} can't _both_ mean "Did you understand that?" and "I understand; how do you feel (about that)?" We already decided in the definition for {pei} that the latter is correct. Hence, the former is incorrect.

We could of course be silent on the example of {je'e pei}, but I think it is wiser to document for posterity what kind of reasoning went into the decision.

> BTW, there's a mismatch between the English and the Lojban in this example:
>
> .ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
> Do you agree that 2 in a set with 2 is a set with two members?

I'm confused. What is the correct English translation of that sentence?

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule. Ice is cool.

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
>
> I would of course prefer to make you 100% happy, but I'm not sure how I could do that here. It seems intuitively obvious to me that {je'e pei} can't _both_ mean "Did you understand that?" and "I understand; how do you feel (about that)?" We already decided in the definition for {pei} that the latter is correct. Hence, the former is incorrect.

But the "we" that decided that doesn't include me, that's why I don't
want to vote as if I was agreeing with something I don't agree with. I
don't want to vote against either simply because I don't think it's
worth delaying our work over this issue. It is so obvious to me how
people will continue to use "je'e pei", that whatever the BPFK says
about it will simply be ignored. At some point the BPFK will just have
to come to its senses.

> We could of course be silent on the example of {je'e pei}, but I think it is wiser to document for posterity what kind of reasoning went into the decision.

That's exactly why I don't want my supporting vote there! I am in
disagreement with that reasoning, I don't want to give it weight.

>> BTW, there's a mismatch between the English and the Lojban in this example:
>>
>> .ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
>> Do you agree that 2 in a set with 2 is a set with two members?
>
> I'm confused. What is the correct English translation of that sentence?

Whatever "se pamei" is, it is not "a set with two members". I don't
want to suggest a translation because my use of "mei" is different in
any case.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sunday 16 November 2008 09:31:06 Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> >> BTW, there's a mismatch between the English and the Lojban in this
> >> example:
> >>
> >> .ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
> >> Do you agree that 2 in a set with 2 is a set with two members?
> >
> > I'm confused. What is the correct English translation of that sentence?
>
> Whatever "se pamei" is, it is not "a set with two members". I don't
> want to suggest a translation because my use of "mei" is different in
> any case.

Most likely it should be "se remei".

Pierre

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 10:48:58AM -0500, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Sunday 16 November 2008 09:31:06 Jorge Llambías wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> > >> BTW, there's a mismatch between the English and the Lojban in this
> > >> example:
> > >>
> > >> .ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
> > >> Do you agree that 2 in a set with 2 is a set with two members?
> > >
> > > I'm confused. What is the correct English translation of that sentence?
> >
> > Whatever "se pamei" is, it is not "a set with two members". I don't
> > want to suggest a translation because my use of "mei" is different in
> > any case.
>
> Most likely it should be "se remei".

D'oh! I was afraid that I'd overlooked something blindingly obvious, and indeed I did. Thanks for pointing that out!

Fixed the translation instead (since I prefer not to edit naturally-occurring examples).

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
The problem is, witchcraft is not fantasy; it is a sinful reality in
our world. --christiananswers.net

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

>
> Most likely it should be "se remei".

I think "se pamei" is what was intended:

12 Jul 2005 14:45:42 <xorxes> ro da su'o de zo'u da du de
12 Jul 2005 14:48:22 <Eimi> xu ro da pa de zo'u da du de
12 Jul 2005 14:48:48 <Broca> su'o da su'o re de zo'u da du de
12 Jul 2005 14:49:10 <xorxes> mu'a ma
12 Jul 2005 14:49:45 <Broca> xy boi ce xy. boi
12 Jul 2005 14:51:02 <xorxes> xy boi ce xy boi na du re de
12 Jul 2005 14:51:29 <xorxes> xy boi ce xy boi du pa da
12 Jul 2005 14:51:37 <Broca> xy du li re .i .y bu du li re .i zy du li re
12 Jul 2005 14:51:58 <Broca> .i li re du xy .e .y bu .e zy
12 Jul 2005 14:52:24 <xorxes> i se ni'i bo xy boi y bu boi zy du
12 Jul 2005 14:52:41 <Broca> go'i
12 Jul 2005 14:52:46 <xorxes> pa da
12 Jul 2005 14:53:00 <Broca> vo da
12 Jul 2005 14:53:32 <Broca> li re ce xy ce y bu ce zy cu vomei
12 Jul 2005 14:54:06 <Broca> coi slobin
12 Jul 2005 14:54:13 <slobin> coi broca
12 Jul 2005 14:54:18 <slobin> coi rodo
12 Jul 2005 14:54:39 <Eimi> na go'i .i se pamei
12 Jul 2005 14:54:59 <xorxes> ganai xy boi y bu boi zy boi li re du gi
li re ce xy li'o cu pamei
12 Jul 2005 14:55:24 <Eimi> xu su'o da du'o de su'o di zo'u da de du
.i je da di du .i je de di na du
12 Jul 2005 14:55:45 <Broca> je'enai
12 Jul 2005 14:56:33 <xorxes> na go'i doi eimis
12 Jul 2005 14:56:33 <Eimi> .ie pei li re ce li re cu se pamei
12 Jul 2005 14:56:53 <Broca> oi zo mei cizra

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 12:09:18PM -0800, rlpowell wrote:
>
> Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>
> Author: rlpowell
>
> The definitions refer to "the preface" repeatedly, without actually saying what that is.

Same as all UI/CAI.

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=BPFK+Section%3A+Dictionary+Preface#Attitudinals_UI_CAI_others_

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
På 1300-tallet kom tersen. Før og etter det var det meste bare rot, men
så kom Schönberg og ordnet opp. Puh. Endelig litt system. Så klarte Arne
Nordheim Ã¥ rote det til igjen. — Under Dusken 08/2001

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 09:15:46PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen
wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 12:09:18PM -0800, rlpowell wrote:
> >
> > Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
> >
> > Author: rlpowell
> >
> > The definitions refer to "the preface" repeatedly, without
> > actually saying what that is.
>
> Same as all UI/CAI.
>
> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=BPFK+Section%3A+Dictionary+Preface#Attitudinals_UI_CAI_others_

Got it, thanks.

I'm making some changes to the page, which I don't think anyone will
be bothered by, but just in case:

1. I made English for the cai entries a lot more intense-sounding.

2. I put a space between all words; compound cmavo bother me in
general, but they certainly shouldn't be here, where we're defining
the words seperately from their modifiers.

3. I put required periods in (where sentences had no cmene) or
removed all periods (where they did), thus avoiding Dot Side issues.
Before, many of the sentences had some-but-not-all periods filled
in, which is just sloppy.

4. Added a keyword to pei.

I'm aware that the examples are from the wild, but I don't feel that
that requires us to hold to speakers' idiosyncratic use of spaces
and periods.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 03:17:34PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen
wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 10:24:45AM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 7:43 AM, arj <wikidiscuss@lojban.org>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > There are currently two people who have voted against this
> > > section.
> > >
> > > Can the two of you please re-evaluate the section, and if
> > > necessary, suggest possible changes?
> >
> > I'm one of the three who voted in favor, but my vote was for the
> > previous version. My disagreement is with the comment that "je'e
> > pei" is an error. It's not worth half-vetoing the page for that
> > but I can't vote in favor either, so I ask that my vote not be
> > counted.
>
> I would of course prefer to make you 100% happy, but I'm not sure
> how I could do that here. It seems intuitively obvious to me that
> {je'e pei} can't _both_ mean "Did you understand that?" and "I
> understand; how do you feel (about that)?" We already decided in
> the definition for {pei} that the latter is correct. Hence, the
> former is incorrect.

I agree, it can't mean both, but:

1. Usage is *overwhelmingly* (like, 100% AFAIK, with dozens of
examples) in favour of the former.

2. We really need both meanings. Srsly.

I'm not sure how to resolve this, but I'm voting against until
there's some way to say what we've all been using "je'e pei" for.

The obvious option, it seems to me, is a pei that's just for CAI,
instead of for any attidtudinal. If so, we'd also need a neutral
CAI, so {.ui xei} could be responded to if the user was only feeling
{.ui}. I've wanted one of those for a long time anyways.

In fact, I'd like to see {pei} mean "supply UI and optionals" only,
and have a seperate word for intensity. The {je'e pei} problem
occured, it seems to me, because people are used to {.ui pei}, where
the pei actually *does* mean what people intended {je'e pei}
intended it to mean. Having a word do that kind of closely-related
double-duty is sloppy.

Other options:

1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI (I don't like this
one).

2. Introduce a je'e-lik emember of UI. I like this idea, but if
we're going to do that we should do it for pretty much all of COI.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> 2. We really need both meanings. Srsly.

When does the weird meaning (i.e. "je'e ge'e pei") come up, and is it
so common that we need an extremely short form for it? And why don't
we need equally short forms for "ui ge'e pei" or "ie ge'e pei", for
example?

> The obvious option, it seems to me, is a pei that's just for CAI,
> instead of for any attidtudinal.

{pei} already is in CAI. Perhaps you mean another question word in UI
rather than in CAI. (Although it would be rather vague, if it asks for
anything in UI as an answer, because UI is pretty diverse.

> If so, we'd also need a neutral
> CAI, so {.ui xei} could be responded to if the user was only feeling
> {.ui}.

We have {ja'ai}. (What we do need to do is move NAI to CAI, but maybe
that's a discussion for another day.)

> The {je'e pei} problem
> occured, it seems to me, because people are used to {.ui pei}, where
> the pei actually *does* mean what people intended {je'e pei}
> intended it to mean.

Because it's its primary and basic meaning! {pei} is in CAI.

> Other options:

> 2. Introduce a je'e-lik emember of UI. I like this idea, but if
> we're going to do that we should do it for pretty much all of COI.

I argued at some point that all of COI should be moved to UI (except
for "mi'e" to DOI).

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 08:13:34PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Robin Lee Powell
> <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> >
> > 2. We really need both meanings. Srsly.
>
> When does the weird meaning (i.e. "je'e ge'e pei") come up, and is
> it so common that we need an extremely short form for it?

I've never heard of it.

> > The obvious option, it seems to me, is a pei that's just for
> > CAI, instead of for any attidtudinal.
>
> {pei} already is in CAI. Perhaps you mean another question word in
> UI rather than in CAI. (Although it would be rather vague, if it
> asks for anything in UI as an answer, because UI is pretty
> diverse.

No, that's not what I meant. I meant that currently pei asks for a
UI sometimes and a CAI other times; having one that *only* asked for
a CAI would solve the probelm.

> > If so, we'd also need a neutral CAI, so {.ui xei} could be
> > responded to if the user was only feeling {.ui}.
>
> We have {ja'ai}.

I meant non-experimental.

> > The {je'e pei} problem occured, it seems to me, because people
> > are used to {.ui pei}, where the pei actually *does* mean what
> > people intended {je'e pei} intended it to mean.
>
> Because it's its primary and basic meaning! {pei} is in CAI.

That doesn't mesh with what the CLL says its meaning is, even a
little. I don't mind your desire to tinker so much, but please do
not present your beliefs as fact.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>> > The {je'e pei} problem occured, it seems to me, because people
>> > are used to {.ui pei}, where the pei actually *does* mean what
>> > people intended {je'e pei} intended it to mean.
>>
>> Because it's its primary and basic meaning! {pei} is in CAI.
>
> That doesn't mesh with what the CLL says its meaning is, even a
> little. I don't mind your desire to tinker so much, but please do
> not present your beliefs as fact.

CLL: "Most often, however, the asker will use ``pei'' as a place
holder for an intensity marker. (As a result, ``pei'' is placed in
selma'o CAI, although selma'o UI would have been almost as
appropriate. Grammatically, there is no difference between UI and
CAI.)"

OK, it says "most often" rather than "primary", and notice "almost".
(Not that I base my argument on what CLL says though.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Robin Lee Powell wrote:

> I agree, it can't mean both, but:
>
> 1. Usage is *overwhelmingly* (like, 100% AFAIK, with dozens of
> examples) in favour of the former.
>
> 2. We really need both meanings. Srsly.
>
> I'm not sure how to resolve this, but I'm voting against until
> there's some way to say what we've all been using "je'e pei" for.
>
> The obvious option, it seems to me, is a pei that's just for CAI,
> instead of for any attidtudinal. If so, we'd also need a neutral
> CAI, so {.ui xei} could be responded to if the user was only feeling
> {.ui}. I've wanted one of those for a long time anyways.

So are you proposing that {pei} be moved to UI and a new {pei}-like CAI be
created? Currently, {pei} is seeing usage as both a UI question and a CAI
question, and removing either of those meanings would be non-backwards
compatible. It is sloppy to have the one word do both, but I really don't
like breaking either existing meaning.

If you don't redefine CAI to be "special" on COI, then you'd need a NAI
question here instead of CAI. That is, {je'e sai} would still be {je'e ge'e
sai}, and {je'e CAI-question-word} would still be asking for a CAI, so it
would still be asking about {je'e ge'e CAI-question-word}. So you need a
NAI question, or you need to accept that CAI acts on COI/DOI the way it does
on UI.

> In fact, I'd like to see {pei} mean "supply UI and optionals" only,
> and have a seperate word for intensity. The {je'e pei} problem
> occured, it seems to me, because people are used to {.ui pei}, where
> the pei actually *does* mean what people intended {je'e pei}
> intended it to mean. Having a word do that kind of closely-related
> double-duty is sloppy.
>
> Other options:
>
> 1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI (I don't like this
> one).

That's what I'm in favour of. It's a two word change to the proposed
definition, changing "When following an indicator" to "When following an
indicator or vocative". The CLL meaning (if anyone actually wants it) would
be available as {je'e do'u pei}, which doesn't seem too long at all for the
frequency of use.

> 2. Introduce a je'e-lik emember of UI. I like this idea, but if
> we're going to do that we should do it for pretty much all of COI.

Well, {ki'a nai} is rather close, as is {.ua}, but there are a lot of COI out
there, and a more general solution seems far better.
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

How do you get off a non-stop flight?

Some usages of "COI pei" from:
http://www.lojban.org/resources/irclog/all_logs.txt
"je'e pei" is popular, but so is "re'i pei". There's also "coi pei"
and "vi'o pei".

There are also examples of "CEI pei", "NA pei", "RAhO pei", and "LEhAI pei".

28 Mar 2005 14:21:40 <kpreid> coi brodo
28 Mar 2005 14:22:18 <kpreid> go'ira'o
28 Mar 2005 14:22:57 <Broca> brodo cei pei me ro mi'a

04 Aug 2003 16:32:50 <xod> je'edaipei
(It seems not only "pei", but "dai" too can apply to COI)

18 Aug 2003 12:06:43 <tsali> re'ipei clsn

22 Dec 2005 13:42:35 <jkominek> like all brivla.
22 Dec 2005 13:44:14 <gulik> mutce lojban .ijo mutce xamgu
22 Dec 2005 13:46:40 <gulik> jkominek: xu go'i .i zo lojban cu ja'apei bridi

26 Jun 2003 13:17:25 <clsn> ju'i araizen. re'ipei

14 Jun 2003 17:28:33 <tsali> ma prali do le nu pilno lo marna
14 Jun 2003 17:29:41 <xod> pluka .i piso'eda poi mi gasnu ke'a na
prali .i go'ira'opei
14 Jun 2003 17:32:04 <tsali> na go'i ra'o

22 Jul 2004 21:33:46 <carbon> coi
22 Jul 2004 21:35:27 <carbon> xu la timspik za se pilno da poi co'e
22 Jul 2004 21:50:18 <carbon> re'ipei
22 Jul 2004 21:51:35 <carbon> .i le nu mi cusku fi noda cu to'e kufra

18 Feb 2004 22:37:18 <clsn> coipei
18 Feb 2004 22:39:15 <Taliesin> coi clsn

13 Jun 2006 11:41:08 <timonator> xu zo sedbad na gendra
13 Jun 2006 11:41:39 <Eimi> .i zo sedbad cu ka'e cmene gi'e nai ka'e
brivla .i je'e pei

05 Nov 2008 04:11:28 <cmacis> lo mi canxo cu se cortu
05 Nov 2008 04:11:53 <dbrock`> sa'ai ganxo le'ai pei doi .cmacis.

01 May 2005 12:17:01 <Broca> mi pu zi mo'u benji le cteki se xusra 01 May 2005 12:17:12 <Broca> i go'i fu la ueb u'e 01 May 2005 12:18:19 <Broca> i je'epei

07 Aug 2006 08:40:00 <Eimi> jibri gunka
07 Aug 2006 08:44:35 <johan_> mi na jimpe
07 Aug 2006 08:44:56 <Eimi> mi gunka le jibri be mi
07 Aug 2006 08:48:46 <Eimi> je'e pei

29 Jan 2005 16:47:21 <bancus> that's very rare
29 Jan 2005 16:48:16 <bancus> for any one game
29 Jan 2005 16:56:55 <kpreid> ko pilno la lojban zo'o
29 Jan 2005 16:57:09 <Broca> doi bancus vi'opei

07 Jul 2006 10:09:03 <Eimi> .i je'e pei
07 Jul 2006 10:09:24 <bancus> je'e

24 Oct 2007 11:38:42 <Eimi> .i mi djica lo nu xusra lo du'u na birti
lo du'u broda
24 Oct 2007 11:38:46 <Eimi> je'e pei
24 Oct 2007 11:39:16 <gejyspa> e'e
24 Oct 2007 11:39:19 <gejyspa> je'e

10 Aug 2004 23:18:11 <carbon> coi
10 Aug 2004 23:37:52 <carbon> re'ipei rodo
10 Aug 2004 23:38:08 <carbon> re'ipei doi rodo

13 Oct 2006 12:19:47 <kpreid> je'epei camgusmis

28 Nov 2006 18:39:09 <clsn_> be'e camgusmis
28 Nov 2006 18:44:07 <clsn_> je'epei jbopre
28 Nov 2006 18:56:22 <rlpowell> re'i clsn

01 Dec 2006 23:00:33 <Tene> coi .eimis.
01 Dec 2006 23:01:43 <Tene> re'i pei .eimis.

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 09:13:59AM -0600, Adam D. Lopresto wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> >Other options:
> >
> >1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI (I don't like this
> >one).
>
> That's what I'm in favour of. It's a two word change to the proposed
> definition, changing "When following an indicator" to "When following an
> indicator or vocative". The CLL meaning (if anyone actually wants it) would
> be available as {je'e do'u pei}, which doesn't seem too long at all for the
> frequency of use.

I'm not in principle opposed to such a change.

As for the other suggestions, I'll have to read them a couple of times more to understand what they're about. At first glance, it seems that new selma'o would not be used much among those who are already very proficient in Lojban.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Please Note: Some Quantum Physics Theories Suggest That When the
Consumer Is Not Directly Observing This Product, It May Cease to Exist
or Will Exist Only in a Vague and Undetermined State.
--Susan Hewitt and Edward Subitzky

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 09:13:59AM -0600, Adam D. Lopresto wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>
>> I agree, it can't mean both, but:
>>
>> 1. Usage is *overwhelmingly* (like, 100% AFAIK, with dozens of
>> examples) in favour of the former.
>>
>> 2. We really need both meanings. Srsly.
>>
>> I'm not sure how to resolve this, but I'm voting against until
>> there's some way to say what we've all been using "je'e pei" for.
>>
>> The obvious option, it seems to me, is a pei that's just for CAI,
>> instead of for any attidtudinal. If so, we'd also need a neutral
>> CAI, so {.ui xei} could be responded to if the user was only
>> feeling {.ui}. I've wanted one of those for a long time anyways.
>
> So are you proposing that {pei} be moved to UI and a new
> {pei}-like CAI be created?

Or the other way 'round: leave {pei} in CAI and create a new
pei-like UI

> Currently, {pei} is seeing usage as both a UI question and a CAI
> question, and removing either of those meanings would be
> non-backwards compatible. It is sloppy to have the one word do
> both, but I really don't like breaking either existing meaning.

True enough.

>> In fact, I'd like to see {pei} mean "supply UI and optionals"
>> only, and have a seperate word for intensity. The {je'e pei}
>> problem occured, it seems to me, because people are used to {.ui
>> pei}, where the pei actually *does* mean what people intended
>> {je'e pei} intended it to mean. Having a word do that kind of
>> closely-related double-duty is sloppy.
>>
>> Other options:
>>
>> 1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI (I don't like
>> this one).
>
> That's what I'm in favour of. It's a two word change to the
> proposed definition, changing "When following an indicator" to
> "When following an indicator or vocative". The CLL meaning (if
> anyone actually wants it) would be available as {je'e do'u pei},
> which doesn't seem too long at all for the frequency of use.

I'm becoming more in favour of this as I think about it. I'd
certainly vote yes in this case.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 12:38:50PM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 09:13:59AM -0600, Adam D. Lopresto wrote:
> >> 1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI (I don't like
> >> this one).
> >
> > That's what I'm in favour of. It's a two word change to the
> > proposed definition, changing "When following an indicator" to
> > "When following an indicator or vocative". The CLL meaning (if
> > anyone actually wants it) would be available as {je'e do'u pei},
> > which doesn't seem too long at all for the frequency of use.
>
> I'm becoming more in favour of this as I think about it. I'd
> certainly vote yes in this case.

CLL quotes that can be interpreted as being in favour of this solution (and against my previous stand, groan!):

p. 323:
"The vocatives actually are indicators — in fact, discursives — but the need to tie them to names and other descriptions of listeners require them to be separated from selma'o UI."

p. 326:
"in the context of parliamentary procedure, the protocol question 'ta'apei' would mean 'Will the speaker yield?'"

Unfortunately, this single example of COI+pei is far from unambiguous: does it mean "does the speaker (still) want the floor?" (with reversal), or "I want the floor, what is your opinion on that?" (no reversal)? If the former, then the response to the Lojban question would be the reverse of the English translation, if the latter, it's sorta useless and surprising.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Someone just called to say he loved you?!

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Eimi <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> Please revote, and if you object to either the intent or the wording please say so now!

How about replacing your proposed "je'e do'u pei" with "je'e ge'e
pei"? I don't agree that "je'e do'u pei" has the meaning you say it
has, and presumably nobody disagrees about "je'e ge'e pei", which is
not any longer. It's a minor issue, but removing that bit I can let my
vote in agreement with the page stand.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008, Jorge Llambas wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Eimi <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>>
>> Please revote, and if you object to either the intent or the wording please say so now!
>
> How about replacing your proposed "je'e do'u pei" with "je'e ge'e
> pei"? I don't agree that "je'e do'u pei" has the meaning you say it
> has, and presumably nobody disagrees about "je'e ge'e pei", which is
> not any longer. It's a minor issue, but removing that bit I can let my
> vote in agreement with the page stand.

I'm pretty sure that {je'e do'u pei} does work, and I think {je'e ge'e pei}
is asking how strongly you feel {ge'e} (whatever that is), not creating an
unattached {pei}. But I've removed the advise either way.
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

Peace and long life, unless the two be mutually exclusive.

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 1:42 PM, Adam D. Lopresto <adam@pubcrawler.org> wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure that {je'e do'u pei} does work, and I think {je'e ge'e pei}
> is asking how strongly you feel {ge'e} (whatever that is), not creating an
> unattached {pei}.

At least syntactically, the only possible place for an unattached CAI
is at the very beginning of text. Any place else it will attach to the
preceding word (or group of words in a few cases).

I would state our difference in interpretation as follows: For me CAI
modifies the preceding _word_ (or construct), so that the word (or
construct) acquires a new meaning (related of course in some more or
less specfic way to its original meaning, cf. NAI). For you, this only
happens sometimes. At other times, CAI has a meaning of its own (it
expresses a certain attitude) and is applied, as a full attitude, to
the meaning expressed by the preceding word (or construct).

The current wording of the definitions is slightly tilted towards your
view, but it leaves enough room that I can just force them to
interpret them my way:

cai: Used (by itself, i.e. only at the beginning of text) to express
an extremely intense attitude. When following an indicator or
vocative, it expresses that this attitude (the one expressed by the
indicator or vocative) is extremely intense. (And similarly when
following any other word, it will intensify that word's meaning to the
extreme.)

I won't insist on this reading, as I'm happy with the relatively loose
current wording.

> But I've removed the advise either way.

ui

No point in disagreeing about stuff that makes (almost) no difference
in practice.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 07:35:09AM -0800, Eimi wrote:
>
> Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>
> Author: Eimi
>
> Since there seems to be a consensus forming around COIpei, I've gone ahead and changed the page back to explicitly mention that vocatives are treated like indicators, for all CAI. Note that {nu'e cu'i} and {ju'i cu'i} already have definitions attached to them, so {cu'i} at the very least needs to affect vocatives. Extending that to the rest of CAI seems to be the way to proceed. Please revote, and if you object to either the intent or the wording please say so now!

Thanks. I added an idiomatic translation of the example you reinstated, and I changed the wording a bit on Notes and Impact.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Du klickar bara på en ikon så SER DU DITT LOKALA NÄTVERK.
— Z mag@zine lovpriser Win95 i nr. 7/95

Okay, sorry for taking too long to review the section and its latest revisions.

I have one comment here:

Most of the entries go like this "Used to express an extremely intense
attitude. When following an indicator or vocative, it expresses that
this attitude is extremely intense." What happens when it doesn't
follow an indicator or vocative? And when you say "indicator" are you
referring to all of UI or just certain portions of it. (Some might
argue that some of the words in UI aren't "indicators" as
traditionally learned.)

-- bancus

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:43 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 07:35:09AM -0800, Eimi wrote:
>>
>> Re: BPFK Section: Intensifiers
>>
>> Author: Eimi
>>
>> Since there seems to be a consensus forming around COIpei, I've gone ahead and changed the page back to explicitly mention that vocatives are treated like indicators, for all CAI. Note that {nu'e cu'i} and {ju'i cu'i} already have definitions attached to them, so {cu'i} at the very least needs to affect vocatives. Extending that to the rest of CAI seems to be the way to proceed. Please revote, and if you object to either the intent or the wording please say so now!
>
> Thanks. I added an idiomatic translation of the example you reinstated, and I changed the wording a bit on Notes and Impact.
>
> --
> Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
> Du klickar bara på en ikon så SER DU DITT LOKALA NÄTVERK.
> — Z mag@zine lovpriser Win95 i nr. 7/95
>
>
>
>

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:35:59AM -0800, Theodore Reed wrote:
> Okay, sorry for taking too long to review the section and its latest revisions.
>
> I have one comment here:
>
> Most of the entries go like this "Used to express an extremely intense
> attitude. When following an indicator or vocative, it expresses that
> this attitude is extremely intense." What happens when it doesn't
> follow an indicator or vocative?

Then it expresses an extremely intense attitude. Ie, it acts as any other UI. It's too long-winded to describe how a UI works in every entry, so we refer to the preface.

> And when you say "indicator" are you
> referring to all of UI or just certain portions of it. (Some might
> argue that some of the words in UI aren't "indicators" as
> traditionally learned.)

All of UI ++. The previous wording had "attitudinal". If you know any word that is more general, please suggest one.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
I know, I know. I could write a whole book about procrastination, but
who has the time? — Mark Shoulson

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:35:59AM -0800, Theodore Reed wrote:
>>
>> What happens when it doesn't follow an indicator or vocative?
>
> Then it expresses an extremely intense attitude. Ie, it acts as any other UI. It's too long-winded to describe how a UI works in every entry, so we refer to the preface.

"it acts as any other UI" doesn't really say much, because no other UI
changes meaning depending on the type of word that precedes. Having
CAI change meaning from "intensifier" in some cases to "intense
attitude" in others is weird.

But weirdness is not the worst problem. The worst problem is that it
leaves us without a useful tool: intensifiers for words other than in
UI or COI. And for no apparent gain.

There is also the "answer" mode. For example:

A: la'a pei do ba klama
B: cai

I would interpret that as:

A: How likely is it that you will come/go?
B: Extremely.

But here "cai" is acting as an intensifier of the unexpressed "la'a",
it is not used by B to express an intense attitude. So that would be
an exception to the exception.

Also, what about the usage "na ru'e" for "almost". Granted it is
mostly just by me so far, but I found at least one instance in la
nicte cadzu:

"ni'o ry cusku lu doi sy mi na ru'e tolmorji .i lo blupinxe goi ko'a
cu skami mrilu fi ro blupinxe se cu'u le se du'u le jmive po ko'a cu
mutce ckire lo nu ..."

And if not "na ru'e", how _do_ we say "almost"? (Similarly "ja'a ru'e"
for "barely".)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 09:31:24PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:35:59AM -0800, Theodore Reed wrote:
> >>
> >> What happens when it doesn't follow an indicator or vocative?
> >
> > Then it expresses an extremely intense attitude. Ie, it acts as any other UI. It's too long-winded to describe how a UI works in every entry, so we refer to the preface.
>
> "it acts as any other UI" doesn't really say much, because no other UI
> changes meaning depending on the type of word that precedes. Having
> CAI change meaning from "intensifier" in some cases to "intense
> attitude" in others is weird.

>From my point of view the meaning is always the same, but when it follows a UI or COI it is part of a larger construct. When a CAI appears alone, there is no UI it can modify, so the meaning is that of the CAI alone. I think the current wording covers CAI as used for answering pei questions, that you mention below. But the definitions could certainly be expanded to explicitly mention that.

> But weirdness is not the worst problem. The worst problem is that it
> leaves us without a useful tool: intensifiers for words other than in
> UI or COI. And for no apparent gain.

I think there are two problems with this line of argument:

Intensifiers for other words are ill-defined. The intensifiers mark of points on a seven-point scale; for UI and COI it is pre-defined what this scale is (or at least what it end-points are). Most words are not explicitly on a scale. They could be _interpreted_ to be on a scale, but on which scale?

Take for instance these examples:

• bersa sai
• pe cai
• ru'o ru'e
• vi'a sai

I don't doubt that you could come up with an interpretation for these, but can you make a general rule that a naive speaker of Lojban could use to get to the correct interpretation of these?

It seems simpler to just leave bare CAI as a simple emotional outburst, like any UI. Which brings us to the second point:

Attitudinal indicators (and I mean this in the widest possible sense, including vocatives and discursives) are explicitly intended to have as little grammar as possible. As it says in CLL p. 302, "Attitudinals are the part of Lojban most distant from the 'logical language' aspect."

> ... And if not "na ru'e", how _do_ we say "almost"? (Similarly "ja'a ru'e"
> for "barely".)

I don't think it matters much if we have cmavo for that. Do you?

I have seen people use "jibni lo ka ..." for "almost", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with that. I am sure someone could come up with something similar for "barely".

I don't think that concepts (or grammatical constructs) that are basic to natural languages should necessarily be basic to Lojban. As long as it's expressible in principle, we should be okay.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
<Gemina> Jeg har nett, men ikke maskin. Litt rart.
<Gemina> Kanskje jeg ender opp med å sitte i en krok å sutte på
nettverkskabelen.

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 09:31:24PM -0300, Jorge Llambías wrote:
>> Having
>> CAI change meaning from "intensifier" in some cases to "intense
>> attitude" in others is weird.
>
> From my point of view the meaning is always the same, but when it follows a UI or COI it is part of a larger construct. When a CAI appears alone, there is no UI it can modify, so the meaning is that of the CAI alone.

But if "cai" means "spaker's extremely intense attitude", then "la'a
cai" does not mean "extremely likely" compositionally. There is
nothing that requires any inensity on the part of the speaker for them
to consider something as extremely likely. So if the meaning of "cai"
by itself goes beyond being a mere intensifier, it is changing its
meaning when it acts as a mere intensifier.

>> But weirdness is not the worst problem. The worst problem is that it
>> leaves us without a useful tool: intensifiers for words other than in
>> UI or COI. And for no apparent gain.
>
> I think there are two problems with this line of argument:
>
> Intensifiers for other words are ill-defined.

For some other words yes. They are ill-defined for some UI's as well.
That's not a big problem. Do we know exactly what "ca'e cai" means?
What is the superlative of "I define"? Perhaps we will discover it
some time, or perhaps it will never find much use. It doesn't matter.

> The intensifiers mark of points on a seven-point scale; for UI and COI it is pre-defined what this scale is (or at least what it end-points are). Most words are not explicitly on a scale. They could be _interpreted_ to be on a scale, but on which scale?
>
> Take for instance these examples:
>
> * bersa sai

"mutce bersa" is grammatical too. Is it a problem if it doesn't
normally have a very useful meaning?

> * pe cai

I might interpret that as the most relevant restriction.

> * ru'o ru'e

Something that could barely be considered cyrillic?

> * vi'a sai

Definitely 2-dimensional?

But since ru'o and vi'a are thankfully never used, I expect their
intensified versions will be even more rare.

> I don't doubt that you could come up with an interpretation for these, but can you make a general rule that a naive speaker of Lojban could use to get to the correct interpretation of these?

Yes: "intensifiers make the meaning of the word or construct they
modify more/less extreme." If it doesn't make sense to intensfy a
word, then noody forces you to intensify it.

> It seems simpler to just leave bare CAI as a simple emotional outburst, like any UI.

But the notion that any UI is for a simple emotional outburst is
wrong. Some UIs are for that, many/most are not for that.

> Which brings us to the second point:
>
> Attitudinal indicators (and I mean this in the widest possible sense, including vocatives and discursives) are explicitly intended to have as little grammar as possible. As it says in CLL p. 302, "Attitudinals are the part of Lojban most distant from the 'logical language' aspect."

Indeed. Their whole grammar consists of "attaches to the preceding
word". That's pretty minimal.

>> ... And if not "na ru'e", how _do_ we say "almost"? (Similarly "ja'a ru'e"
>> for "barely".)
>
> I don't think it matters much if we have cmavo for that. Do you?

Yes. It's an important notion.

> I have seen people use "jibni lo ka ..." for "almost", and I don't see anything obviously wrong with that. I am sure someone could come up with something similar for "barely".
>
> I don't think that concepts (or grammatical constructs) that are basic to natural languages should necessarily be basic to Lojban. As long as it's expressible in principle, we should be okay.

Yes, in principle we can probably eliminate most cmavo. I wouldn't
necessarily ask for a way to say "almost" if there wasn't one, but
since that's more or less what "na ru'e" means compositionally, I see
no point in denying ourselves the possibility of using it.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 05:32:31PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> p. 326:
> "in the context of parliamentary procedure, the protocol
> question 'ta'apei' would mean 'Will the speaker yield?'"
>
> Unfortunately, this single example of COI+pei is far from
> unambiguous: does it mean "does the speaker (still) want the
> floor?" (with reversal), or "I want the floor, what is your
> opinion on that?" (no reversal)?

The English phrase "Will the speaker yield?" means "may I
interrept?", which is AFAICT expecting a CAI to go with ta'a; "nai"
is "no, I won't", and the positive CAI opposite of NAI I've been
wanting for ages is "sure, all yours".

The problem there is that "je'e pei" means "did you hear?" "nai"
means that the *responder* is asserting "je'e nai" for themselves.
For "ta'a pei" to work, as far as I can tell, the responder must
be asserting something *for the asker*, which is silly and bad.

In other words, I can't see any interpretation at all that makes
that CLL example make sense; I'm fairly certain that "re'i pei" was
intended.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 02:48:14PM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> 1. Make pei be exceptional for COI as well as UI

I should have thought of this ages ago, but here's the list of all
places in the cmavo list where a CAI is used with something other
than UI:

ju'icu'i COI* at ease
nu'ecu'i COI* release from promise

And here's the list for NAI, just because I was curious, also
dropping the logical connectives:

fi'inai COI* inhospitality
je'enai COI* negative acknowledge
ju'inai COI* ignore me
ki'enai COI* no thanks to you
mi'enai COI* no, I am not
mu'onai COI* more to come
nu'enai COI* non-promise
re'inai COI* not ready to receive

ja'enai BAI* nevertheless result
ki'unai BAI* despite reason
mu'inai BAI* despite motive
ni'inai BAI* despite logic
ri'anai BAI* despite cause
seja'enai BAI* results despite
seki'unai BAI* reason nevertheless
semaunai BAI* not more than
seme'anai BAI* not less than
semu'inai BAI* motive nevertheless
seni'inai BAI* entails nevertheless
seri'anai BAI* causal nevertheless

di'inai TAhE* irregularly
na'onai TAhE* atypically
ru'inai TAhE* occasionally
ta'enai TAhE* non-habitually

The NAI part is mostly irrelevant, but the cu'i part makes a Pretty
Strong Case for what "COI+pei" means.

-Robin

--
They say: "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm thinking: "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other than the default outcome?" — http://shorl.com/tydruhedufogre
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

On Thursday 27 November 2008 18:39:06 Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org> wrote:
> > * vi'a sai
>
> Definitely 2-dimensional?
>
> But since ru'o and vi'a are thankfully never used, I expect their
> intensified versions will be even more rare.

I can't access "le cmalu bloti" now, but from memory:
.iku'i ko'a ru'u zgana
le ve'u vi'a bonxamsi

mu'omi'e .pier.