JAhA + CAI

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ja'a cai
-- "very", "very true", "a long way from being false", "the world would have to change a lot for this to be false"
ja'a ru'e
-- "slightly", "barely", "close to being false", "the world would have to change only a little for this to be false"
na cai
-- "not at all", "a long way from being true", "the world would have to change a lot for this to be true"
na ru'e
-- "almost", "close to being true", "the world would have to change only a little for this to be true"

cu'i and sai would give intermediate degrees on the scale.

--And Rosta


According to hapter 19, you may subscript ja'a to indicate fuzzy

truth values. So an alternative to the above would be subscripting

with subjective PA cmavo. ja'a xi rau and the like. --mi'e .djorden.

  • ja'a xi is certainly the approved method for indicating fuzzy truth values on the scale between True and False -- presumably ja'a xi (?pi) ro and ja'a xi (?pi) no, with fractions of ro in between. So perhaps ja'a xi so'i might mean "very". But this would constitute a new Proposed Interpretive Convention, not an established one. --And Rosta

The conventions proposed here are incompatible with those proposed under Three-value logic. My sense is that we need short and easy ways to say "very", "fairly", etc. -- just see how frequent degree words are in English & other natlangs -- and that that need is so pressing that it powerfully favours the conventions described above. --And Rosta

  • ja'a xi piso'a?
    • ja'a xi pi so'a means "falsish", or at least somewhere on the scale of "sort of", between truth and falsity. JAhA + CAI is for things that are true or that are false. --And Rosta
  • We have no such need, as it has already been satisfied. As you indicated on the va'e page (which is incidently another way to do those things easily), all of them can be approximated with tanru using brivla like "dukse" and "mutce". va'e is the most general way to express degree, but "du'eva'e" is actually longer than just saying "dukse". --mi'e .djorden.
    • I'm not sure who this is addressed to (I didn't say anything about tanru on the va'e page). Va'e is more longwinded (but less crude) than JAhA+CAI, and it too is subject to Proposed Interpretive Conventions, so does not lack the vice of being innovative. Also, it is not clear to me what the exact conventions are for rendering with va'e the equivalents of JAhA+CAI and JAhA+XI. As for the use of tanru, these may satisfy some users, but they don't solve the problem of how to say very common and basic things succinctly and without vagueness. --And Rosta
      • I suspect it was addressed to me, as it was me who wrote about dukse and mutce on the va'e page, but I did not write the ja'a xi piso'a? line! BTW, I have been using ja'asai, ja'aru'e and nasai for some time (plenty of times in the Alice translation, for example). I think I haven't used naru'e enough yet, but I should. --xorxes

John Cowan writes on Jboske:

CAI by itself (not following UI) indicates ge'e + CAI, expressing the intensity of an unspecified emotion. CAI isn't just any old scale, it's an emotional/attitudinal scale.

Xod replied:

In usage it seems to be used the way And suggests; to modify the strength of the previous word, as opposed to the emotion of the speaker. "If you want ge'e..."

... to which And Rosta add that JAhA+CAI has actually seen usage. But given what John says, I am inclined not to support JAhA+CAI and seek some other suitably convenient and unvague way to do "very" etc.

  • So, even though it's seen usage, you won't "support" it? --la xod
  • Well, there's plenty of usage that I consider 'bad'. To take a controversial example, {da'i} has quite a clear meaning in established usage, but I think that it is 'incorrect'. So the simple fact that it has seen usage doesn't weigh heavily in its favour, in my judgement. But as I've said on Jboske, if there is a quasi-official ruling that CAI not following a UI modifies an implicit ge'e, then the reasons for going against that ruling must be very compelling, and usage alone is not enough. As for what would constitute compellingness, something being badly wrong with the official ruling would count as compelling, but that does not apply in this case. I guess that if enough Lojbanists known for their probity (i.e. most people other than me) were in favour, then my reservations would be assuaged. --And Rosta