History: da'i

Source of version: 1 (current)

''Isn't it funny how some selbri imply that an event really occurred, while others don't. Like:''

 mi catlu le nu do morsi
 I watch you die (and you really do die, else how could I watch it?)

 mi tolpacna le nu do morsi
 I don't hope you die (and you probably didn't yet!)

''So, watch me ignite a flame war:''

 mi tolpacna le nu da'inai do morsi
 I don't hope you die (but yet, you do!)

I think that ''da'i'' marks whether the speakers thinks that the events so marked is a likely enough to be considered, but the event may still occur even if it was marked with ''da'i'' (or not occur even though it's marked with ''da'inai'').

''Somehow my instincts tell me a jbojbe would not be confused by this. The flame war will start when somebody tries to argue that, since da'inai is in inside nu, it somehow gets nullified. This, however, is valid too:''

 mi catlu le nu da'i do morsi
 I watch you allegedly die

''So what's with the phantom da'is in there that I must actively override, sometimes? --((xod))''

Some selbri, like djuno and catlu, are inherently factive: the abstractions they talk about have real-world counterparts.  Others, like kucli, are inherently non-factive.  This is a fact about the Real World.

''Keep in mind that we had a very long flame war over djuno being factive. "know" is factive, but "djuno" is only relative to djuno4.''

''And are they facts about the real world? Or Englishistic factoids? Why can't I catlu something that never occurred? I could have been mistaken or dreaming. We already showed in a very long flame war that I can djuno a falsehood. --((xod))''

* Long, confused, and IMO pointless flamewar between xod and xorxes on the ((factivity of djuno)). Thanks a bunch, guys, for not clarifying anything -- nitcion, fuming.
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Perhaps, instead of calling selbri absolutely factive or absolutely not, we should say that we ((glork)) their claims to be factual. If you say ''mi catlu le nu do morsi'', I will normally expect ''do ca morsi''--but not always. If you are standing on stage next to a hypnotist, I may expect that you are deluded (you're making a statement about your beliefs of the moment, but not about the world). Or I may recognize that you are talking about a hypothetical situation, or about the events of a puppet show, relying on the non-veridicality of ''le'' (you're making a statement about some ''munje'', but not about the real world). Or, if you're talking about me and I consider myself alive, I may have no idea why you're saying such a thing, but I'll still consider it false--maybe I would understand you to be saying "how can you be alive, I saw you die!" ''mi'e ((jezrax))''
* ''I like this. Adherence to reality may compel us to use these words in an predictable manner, but we probably shouldn't import that philosophy into the language, keeping it able to express confusing or nonsensical ideas. --((xod))''
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Right. Let's start again, shall we?

* Presupposition is a fact. ''lo'' presupposes the existence of its referent, just the same as "The present King of France" does.
* Lojban indubitably has factive predicates. That is part of their definition. e.g. ''snada''
* Factivity means that, where A is the matrix proposition and B the complement, if A is true (in this world) then so is B. So, take the claim ''mi snada lenu mi cikna'' . If ''mi snada'' is true in this world, then ''mi cikna'' must be true in this world. By definition. Else, ''snada'' does not apply.
* This is not compromised by counterfactuals. ''.i da'i mi snada lenu mi cikna'' makes both A and B counterfactual. ''.i da'i mi snada lenu da'inai mi cikna'', however, is a paradox.
** It need not be a paradox. If my awakeness is not a result of my trying to stay awake, then it is not a {da'inai se snada}. But it is an odd thing to say anyway. --((xorxes))
* The same holds for ''catlu''. What you see happens: if you ''do'' see, then both A and B are true in this world. If you hallucinated that you saw it, then it wasn't real --- but neither was the seeing. Factivity says that either both ''nu catlu'' and ''se catlu'' are true in this world, or both ''nu catlu'' and ''se catlu'' are counterfactual.
* xod claims that ''mi catlu le nu da'i do morsi'' is valid. If he means ''mi da'inai catlu le nu da'i do morsi'' is valid (or, better still, ''mi romu'ei catlu le nu do su'omu'ei morsi''), I say he is wrong. That's as much a paradox as saying ''da ge jetnu de gi jitfa de''.
* When verbs aren't factive, they aren't necessarily antifactive either: a verb that does not presuppose its complement may ''still'' have its complement be true. Thus both the following are perfectly acceptable: ''mi tolpacna le nu da'i do morsi''; ''mi tolpacna le nu da'inai do morsi''

* We are forgetting, however, in our eagerness to have a fight :-| , that all complement clauses in Lojban '''already''' have a presuppositional marker. ''lonu''.
* So if you say ''lo xelso cu djuno lo du'u do pilno lo tutci'', the source for the truth of ''du'u do pilno lo tutci'' is identical to the source for the existence of ''lo xelso''. They are both claimed to exist (to be true) in the prenex. And there ain't no epistemology place in the prenex.
* That said, once you've admitted x4 into ''djuno'', I am quite prepared to admit it isn't factive any more. Because factivity ''does'' presume Absolute Truth. Or at least as much Absolute Truth as do prenexes, and ''lo noltaitru be le fasygu'e''. And that's incompatible with relative epistemologies.
* The distinction between ''djuno'' and ''krici'' then does indeed become nebulous. But not unformalisable.
* In summary, on the broad picture I probably agree with xod. In all the details of the discussion, I found myself agreeing with xorxes instead. (The business about "if you extensionally would call each of your opinions true, how can you say you know some of your opinions to be false" was quite galling: I didn't expect xod to be so logical positivist. But then, I've had that misunderstanding with xod before.)
* Finally, jezrax's point is true: since the late '70s, linguists' understandin of presupposition has moved from semantic to pragmatic (i.e. glorkable.) But of course, if we're pretending to be a logical language, we're also pretending to hang on to at least some logical machinery.

--- mi'e nitcion

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* Presupposition is a fact. ''lo'' presupposes the existence of its referent, just the same as "The present King of France" does.
** Sorry to butt in, Nick, but did you mean ''le''? Surely you do. --((And))
**No, I actually do mean ''lo''. 'Cause it's  veridical.
* Lojban indubitably has factive, i.e. presupposing predicates. That is part of their definition. e.g. ''snada''
** Indubitably factive. But it is controversial to claim that they are presupposing. --((And))
* Logical presupposition means that, where A is the matrix proposition and B the complement, if A is true (in this world) then so is B. So, take the claim ''mi snada lenu mi cikna'' . If ''mi snada'' is true in this world, then ''mi cikna'' must be true in this world. By definition. Else, ''snada'' does not apply.
** You are describing factivity, not presupposition. If you negate A, is the sentence still saying (albeit not necessarily 'claiming') that B is true? If Yes, then there is presupposition. If No, then there isn't. The consensus regarding ''djuno'' when last it was debated on Lojban list was that ''djuno'' is factive but not presuppositional. --((And))
** (You mean, there's ever consensus in those discussions? Then the onus is on you guys to keep writing any such consensuses up.) The early definitions of factivity were in terms of presupposition. Things got more and more muddled through the '70s, but actually, I don't think that's germane to what I'm arguing, which is that ''da'inai'' is built in to some Lojban predicates, and ''da'i'' to others.
History: da'i

Source of version: 1 (current)

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