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Re: [engelang] Xorban Development



Mike S., On 31/08/2012 03:24:



On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 10:05 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email <mailto:and.rosta@hidden.email>> wrote:

    Mike S., On 31/08/2012 02:48:


     > Did you and And decide on a way to say "but"?

    No.

    My sense is that it should be an illocutionary, and that there should be a way to make illocutionaries out of predicates, because an open class of illocutionaries is needed.

    Well, I say illocutionary, but strictly speaking "but" is not performing an action (as illocutionaries do); rather it is expressing contrast, but outside the scope of any illocutionary. E.g. "He is poor but happy" means "I-state he is poor and happy; poverty and happiness contrast".

    Probably we need something like this:

    XX = unary discourse markers, outside scope of illocutionary:
    XX includes a contrast-marking particle

    "he is poor but happy"
    "contrast and poor happy"

    C-V = binary discourse marker, where V binds variable in first formula and first formula ascribes property (e.g. of being mindblowing) to second formula.


     > I haven't been following all the CV'V stuff. Now that "nu" has been created, I was wondering how that would work with 'but':
     >
     > je klma'a nu klme'e
     > I am going and you are or are not going.
     > =I'm going and maybe you too.
     >
     > j[but] klma'a nu klme'e
     > =I'm going but you may be not going.
     > =I'm going but maybe you not.
     >
     > je nu klme'e klma'a
     > You are or are not going and I am going.
     > You may be going, and I am going. -- not sure if this sounds right.
     >
     > j[but] nu klme'e klma'a
     > You may be not going, but I am.
     >
     > Any ideas on that? Has that been covered?

    I think "nu" does not mean "maybe".

    I need reminding what the point of the truth and tautology operators is....


They seem to have illocutionary force, but I am not sure, which is why I invoked your name. Yesterday I used "ni" in examples, translating it as "indeed", which to me is roughly the effect of saying "it is the case that". I think that's fine and useful, assuming that usage is acceptable. Maybe {na ni} could be the polar opposite.

"nu" means {{ni} xor {na}} if it were possible to coordinate operators = "either it is the case, or it is not the case, that...". Maybe "may" is not the best translation for that, but it's a rough approximation in colloquial English. I was trying to capture the feel of it in English.

In a nutshell, the question I am asking is, though, how do you say "but" and how does it work with "nu".

I'd meant to suggest that "but" would be a discourse marker expressing contrast and taking "je" as its 'complement'. However, that doesn't necessarily encode that the contrast holds between the two 'complements' of "je" -- or, more precisely, that the surprise is the "and" (rather than xor). Perhaps just create "je'e" or suchlike to mean "but"?

As for "but" when one of the conjuncts is "nu", there's no really obvious meaning. "je P nu Q" means something like "P whether or not Q". Therefore "but P nu Q" means something like "P whether or not Q, whereas only one of {P-and-Q, P-and-not-Q} would have been expected". Is my reasoning sound?

--And.