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| In a message dated 10/7/2002 1:18:27 PM Central Daylight Time, a.rosta@hidden.email writes: << >I'm sorry to have put you to the trouble of writing this, but I accept it all as correct. >> My pleasure, especially since I was not nearly so clear about some of these things before I wrote it. Can you please say something else outrageous sounding to get my head straight on some of these othere critters? << Just to make sure we are on the same wavelength here: {na ku ko'a ja'a cai bajra} means "It is not the case that he is very much running (but he might nonetheless be running to some other (lesser? -- details yet to be thrashed out) extent", IMO. That is, the information added by {cai} falls within the scope of the negation. >> Since I am getting a little rattled by a variey of {jVV -CAI/xiPA}, let me set out where I am now and plunk you {ja'acai} in where it fits -- or carve out a new place for it. 1. truth values: these are totally metalinguistic and so don't appear in the bridi at all but only in meta claims {li piPA jei [bridi]}. 2. Expressed meta-comments to the effect that the sentence in which they are embedded has such-and-such truth value. They are separate claims from the embedding sentences, even if the claim is that it is true. As such, they are unaffected by negations in the underlying sentence (I think that {sei}, insofar as I understand it, is just the ticket here. 3. Indications of how much of what makes for truth the sentence contains. This also seems to me to be meta and turn up in comment-like parentheses (and in {ni} claims -- unless those are the next thing) but I can see a kind of truth-in-describing role for them, perhaps analogous to evidentials: I am claiming this is an Olympic class F, but on the basis of only 9.75 score (which may be enough, mind you, and is certainly better than 9.70) I think these are inside a negation, making a part of the claim (but I fear I can be argued both ways on this, since this is all inchoate still). 4. Indications of how nearly the event described is to some standard for events of this sort. This may be just the projection of of 3 into [0,1], though it may be open-ended, too. 5. Modifiers (formerly functions, but they aren't really) which look at the same range of values toward being an F or partial pefection as an F or in-event quantities and then applies a different set of cut-off points and curves. This is predicate modofication and so is at the heart of the claim, under negations and whatever else. 6. (which ended up in {xoi'a} thread) Quantities in events - height in inches, speed in mph or rpm, temperature, and so on and on. In the event so central when mentioned in the sentence. Your {ja'acai}: "My preferred scale is "how much the world would have to change for p to become false", with all further details of how that is to be measured glorked from context or general cognition." sounds closest to 3 or 4, in either case under the {na}. << Well, in English, "very true" means pretty much what I want "ja'a cai" to mean. That is, "It's very true that she's beautiful" does not *encode* the same meaning as "She's very beautiful", but the former would tend to be understood as the latter, to an extent that I find satisfactory. >> I wonder if British is significantly different here. I don't think I say "very true" much and then only as part of a formula "That's true; that's very true," a strong (or placating) agreement response, indicating variously that it is true and I wish I had noticed it or that it is true and so boringly obvious as not to be worth commenting on (sincere envy and more sincere irony). In that context "It's very true that she is beautiful" -- which I don't think I say (a thought which may be totally devoid of reality) -- would mean something between "duh!" (which might indeed imply "She is very -- blindingly obviously -- beautiful" ) to "By George, she is beautiful; funny how I never noticed that those componenets put together they way they are on her would get to beauty." Which still might be a long way from very beautiful still, but over the mark from comely at least. |