*Re: *old response to And on fuzzy proposals

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>From last month:
>From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
>Subject:      Re: *old response to And on fuzzy proposals
>> >At any rate, you are completely mistaken about metalinguistics. They
>> >cannot override everything. For example, {do jinvi kuau la djan cu
>> >sei dei/ti jitfa seu gerku} does not mean {you believe that John
>> >is not a dog}. To say that, you use {na}.
>> kuauau? Oh yeah that is "lenu or is it lonu? or lesedu'u  Whatever.  i
>> think I know what you mean.
>
>{kuau} takes a bridi and yields a sumti.  It is equivalent to "le du'u",
>etc.
>
>> It means "it is false that {You believe that John is a dog}
>
>Well - rather, it means "You believe that John is a dog.  What I just
>said is untrue."  - that gets the meaning better.

I'll accept the rewording, though I am not sure of the difference.

>Consider {ko jinvi kuau la djan cu sei dei jitfa seu gerku}.  That does
>not mean "Make it false that you believe that John is a dog" or "It is
>false that I command you to believe that J is a dog".  It means "Believe
>J is a dog (- it so happens that you don't believe he is a dog)".

This is true, but I am not sure of your point.  "ko" has metalinguistic
effects, though they are built into the word.  "sei" has metalinguistic
effects.  When you have both present there will undoubtedly be a
precedence.

>> It also happens that
>> do na jinvi kuau la djan cu gerku
>> also has the same English translation.
>
>No.  Well - at a push maybe, but it would be a crappy translation.  You
>wouldn't catch a subtilist like Jorge making them translation
>equivalents.

I wouldn't either - in the general case they might not mean the same
thing - it is just that in the absence of any context, they appear to
mean the same in this case, and I am not sure I can think of a context
where they do not.  (Introducing "ko", and "go'i" add new metalinguistic
effects besides that of negation, and their effects have constrained
scope.  Thus it is not legit to say that they reveal a true semantic
difference between the metalinguistic phrase and the negation - just
that simple transforms are not always preserved under those operators.

>> I do not know whether they are semantically identical - just
>> indistingushable in English, hence I do not know how to talk about any
>> potential differences.
>
>The trick is to discuss non main clause declarative bridi.  That brings
>differences out.  Also, {go.i} anaphora:  it picks up {na} but not {sei
>dei jitfa}.  So {ti na broda i ta go,i} means {... i ta na broda}, while
>{ti broda sei dei jitfa i ta go,i} means {... i ta broda}.

And again, go'i is a word with metalinguistic effects.  You have even
made it clear that it is metalinguistic:  we are "discussing bridi".

(orthography sidenote:  "go,i" does not devoice the glide and would to
my ear be almost indistinguishable from "goi,i", and is NOT pronounced
go'i with a devoiced glide).

>> >> >They (the ones I understand) are of no use.
>> >> Any comments on the truth or falsity of the currnet bridi or components
>> >> therof areexactly what we had in mind for metaplingusitics.
>>
>> >Fair enough. But we are seeking ways to do fuzzy "negation", not
>> >ways to comment on the truth of the current bridi.
>>
>> Thus you appear to claim that negation is something other than a comment
>> on the truth of the current bridi.  I do not see any difference.
>
>I hope you will now.  It's important to see the difference, in order to
>prevent discursive abuse [misuse of discursives, not insulting
>discussions].

I don't think I claimed that "na" negation had a *trivial*
transformation into a sei metalinguistic (unaffected by other features
of the bridi, especially those that are also metalinguistic in nature),
merely that such a transformation exists, and that therefore the
negation is a metalinguistic comment on truth.  Fuzzy negation would be
a similar metalinguistic comment on the truth and probably would have
similar transformation effects to "na" - but we won't know until we look
at specific cases.

lojbab