Re: Observative is primary (was: oops! correction )

[cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc]

> Date:  Thu, 18 Apr 91 09:27:04 EDT
> To:  ai-lab!nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au
> cc:  ai-lab!lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
> From:  grackle!bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
> Subject:  oops! correction

> * * *   
> There is even a hypothsis lurking around for someone to test that the
> observative is a primary gramatical category and that the basic
> concepts of a language are learned through the observative  (you can
> develop this from some of thw rok reported by Lakoff).

The first I saw this was from our own pc "John Parks-Clifford"; sorry,
I don't have the reference handy.  He may have picked it up from
somewhere else and imported it into Old Loglan.  Anyway, "A crocodile!"
is a typical observative, in which the listener's attention is called
to the referent set member(s) of the bare sumti.  On the other hand,
"John, a rat is after your cheese" is a normal sentence which has a
referent set consisting of N-tuplets of rat(s), cheese(s) and
addressee(s).  The reason the speaker puts out the sentence is to call
the listener's attention to these referent members, which the listener
might not know about.  Thus the two language behaviors are identical in
form (emission of a symbol for a referent set) and purpose (calling the
listener's attention to the referent set members).  

Note to purists: we can say this authoritatively because a Loglan -
Lojban - -gua!spi sentence (selbri) is *defined* to be a symbol for
thus-related N-tuples of arguments; with a natural language we would
have to infer such a definition from live behavior, not an easy task
given the illogic of much natural language speech.  

In "How To Say Things with Words", Quine (I think, maybe wrong author)
has a similar discussion in which he contrast constative and
performative utterances.  Constative means that the utterance "asserts"
a fact.  Performative means that by saying the utterance the speaker
accomplishes some action, as in "I now pronounce you husband and wife".
Quine's final point is that every sentence has both constative and
performative aspects, in various degrees; even the most constative
sentence has the performative aspect that by saying it the speaker
dumps the information on the listener.

Lojban has a performative aspect marker or sumti-tcita, doesn't it?

James F. Carter        (213) 825-2897
UCLA-Mathnet;  6221 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90024-1555
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