History: Forms of Subjunctivity

Source of version: 1 (current)

__pe'a__, __da'i__, __ja'acu'i__, maybe also __nu'o__

One may say at the onset that ''pe'a'' is poetical, ''da'i'' rhetorical (''cusku smuni''), & ''ja'acu'i'' logical (''logji smuni''). To what extent do they differ, to what extent intersect? And what do these have to do with the part of Lojban left to inference (unexpressed ''sumti'' places, the relation of the units of a ''tanru'')...?

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why do you think ja'acu'i means logical? (I am using this in the sense described under [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?Three-value%20Logic|"Three-Value Logic"].)

There is more than one way to think about this. For instance, "undecided"(3), or "neither true nor false"(2), or "both true and false"(1), or "neither true nor false, [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?ju%27e|or] both true and false, depending on context" (which i favor); plus various representations based on ternary diagrams (scissors/paper/rock or the [http://www.internetlogic.org/slip21.htm|primary color wheel]...) & ''rotation''.

As a lujvo: ''norje'u'': "In-between-true-and-false". In fuzzy logic: ''ja'axipimu''...


(1)''jetnu je jitfa'' is, in Lojban, simply a contradiction; while

(2)''jetnu najenai jitfa'' is the empty set.

(3) ''ju'ocu'i'' expresses uncertainty about a statement.

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__da'i__ (CLL):

"The discursive ''da'i'' marks the discourse as possibly taking a non-real-world viewpoint ('Supposing that', 'By hypothesis'), whereas ''da'inai'' insists on the real-world point of view ('In fact', 'In truth', 'According to the facts'). A common use of ''da'i'' is to distinguish between:

 12.5) ganai da'i do viska le mi citno mensi
        gi ju'o do djuno le du'u ri pazvau
    If you (hypothetical) see my young sister,
        then (certain) you know that she is-pregnant.
    If you were to see my younger sister,
        you would certainly know she is pregnant.

and:

 12.6) ganai da'inai do viska le mi citno mensi
        gi ju'o do djuno le du'u ri pazvau
    If you (factual) see my young sister,
        then (certainty) you know that she is-pregnant.
    If you saw my younger sister,
        you would certainly know she is pregnant.

It is also perfectly correct to omit the discursive altogether, and leave the context to indicate which significance is meant. (Chinese always leaves this distinction to the context: the Chinese sentence

 12.7) ru2guo^3 ni^3 kan4dao^4 wo^3 mei4mei,
        ni^3 yi2ding^4 zhi1dao^4 ta^1 huai2yun^4 le
    if you see-arrive my younger-sister,
        you certainly know she pregnant

is the equivalent of either Example 12.5 or Example 12.6.)"

Other discussions, that do not avoid [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?Dreamtime|Cloudcuckooland], are [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?da%27i|here] & [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?CAhA%20as%20sumtcita|here].
However, i prefer to think of ''da'i'' as a way of representing one of the ways humans speak, without necessarily carrying a lot of philosophical baggage as to whether or not alternative realities in any sense "exist". I realize it is ''lobykai'' to make one's presuppositions explicit, but i have a strong hunch that future ''lobypre'' will not use ''da'i'' except to express (or translate) this ''tone of voice''; whereas for true philosophical discussions they would create technical terms with exact meanings by means of ''cei broda''.

''le dei xanri'' as a metastatement.

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__pe'a__ (CLL):

As a tanru: ''sinxa selsku''. One may note that, in Lojban anyway, you have to have something ''definite'' in mind when speaking fuguratively...


"The cmavo ''pe'a'' is the indicator of figurative speech, indicating that the previous word should be taken figuratively rather than literally:

 13.2) mi viska le blanu pe'a zdani
    I see the blue (figurative) house.
    I see the ''blue'' house.

Here the house is not blue in the sense of color, but in some other sense, whose meaning is entirely culturally dependent. The use of ''pe'a'' unambiguously marks a cultural reference: ''blanu'' in Example 13.2 could mean 'sad' (as in English) or something completely different.

The negated form, ''pe'anai'', indicates that what has been said is to be interpreted literally, in the usual way for Lojban; natural-language intuition is to be ignored.

Alone among the cmavo of selma'o UI, ''pe'a'' has a rafsi, namely ''pev''. This rafsi is used in forming figurative (culturally dependent) lujvo, whose place structure need have nothing to do with the place structure of the components. Thus ''risnyjelca'' (heart burn) might have a place structure like:

x1 is the heart of x2, burning in atmosphere x3 at temperature x4
whereas ''pevrisnyjelca'', explicitly marked as figurative, might have the place structure:

x1 is indigestion/heartburn suffered by x2
which obviously has nothing to do with the places of either ''risna'' or ''jelca''."

See also [http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?figurative%20language|"Figurative Language"].

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__nu'o__ (CLL):

"Consider once again the newly hatched ducks mentioned earlier. They have the potential of swimming, but have not yet demonstrated that potential. This may be expressed using ''nu'o'', the cmavo of CAhA for undemonstrated potential:

 19.7) ro cifydatka nu'o flulimna
    all infant-ducks (can but has not) are-float-swimmers.
    All infant ducks have an undemonstrated potential
        for swimming by floating.
    Baby ducks can swim but haven't yet."

(Contrastive to ''pu'i''.)

*Notice though that there is an unmentioned but present fluid (probably water) in these relationships. This "undemonstrated potential" is not just of the ducks, but of every duck-water pair. It can be misleading to talk of a potential of the ducks, when what we have is in fact a potential relationship. We could just as well translate 19.7 as "water can be swam in by baby ducks but hasn't yet", which sounds very odd. I don't think time tenses should really be involved here, since none is mentioned. For example ''le vi cifydatka nu'o ba flulimna'' should mean "this little duck could but won't swim". --((xorxes))
History: Forms of Subjunctivity

Source of version: 1 (current)

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