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The Spem conlang: should

"Should" has a lot of different meanings that aren't distinguished in any language I know of. Here are the three I can pinpoint:

Moral

Strategic

"False subject". This one is the vaguest, but here's an example: "Rey shouldn't have defeated Kylo in The Force Awakens". It's neither a moral nor a strategic should - at least, not one that applies to Rey. The statement it's actually making is that *the story would be better if this didn't happen*, in other words, Rey isn't the subject of the 'should'; the story or the writer is. Hence the name.

The false subject is also used for jokes (X should have happened = it would've been funny if X had happened), general design (user interface consultant says "the button should be here" = "the interface is better if the button is here"), et cetera. The only consistent rule of this form seems to be that the grammatical subject is not the semantic subject.

Spem of course is going to separate all these. They're all used as adverbs. Here they are so far:

Morals

rɑ - "should": not doing it is morally reprehensible.

rɑi - "shouldn't": doing it is morally reprehensible. Basically this can be thought of as a convenience alias for "rɑ nu".

ri - The action is morally admirable, but not doing it is excusable.

Examples:

I should move it. = "mi rɑ nɪv ɪl."

I shouldn't move it. = "mi rɑi nɪv ɪl."

I *have* to move it. = "mi tir rɑ nɪv ɪl."

Ideally, / if I were a really great person, I'd move it. = "mi ri nɪv ɪl."

There's no reason I should move it. = "mi nu rɑ nɪv ɪl."

(I should, but) I don't *have* to move it... (it wouldn't be that bad if I didn't...) = "mi nu tir rɑ nɪv ɪl..." (eg: ideally one should sacrifice one's life in this situation, but can hardly be blamed for not doing so)

I'm not sure if I need to add one for "two-sided moral irrelevance". "nu rɑ" means it's perfectly okay to not do something and "nu rɑi" means it's perfectly okay to do something, but I don't have a succinct way to explicitly make both statements. I would add 'ro' but that's taken. 'reu' doesn't sound that good. 'ru' is another possibility, but that doesn't sound good when followed by nu. Maybe 'rei'.

Strategic, perfect information

zɑ - "should": doing it will promote the subject's goals

zɑi - "shouldn't": doing it will undermine the subject's goals

Strategic, given information

The perfect information strategic should words reference what would *actually* promote the subject's goals. The given information variants reference what the subject, at the time, thought would be beneficial. Note that these are aliases for "tu ke ni zɑ(i)".

az - "should"

ɑiz - "shouldn't"

False subject

My tentative plan for this is to have the words 'wɑ' (should) and 'wɑi' (shouldn't), which go at the beginning of the sentence, since that structure most accurately reflects the "it would be better/worse if ..." that they designate. I'm not sure whether I should distinguish strategic and artistic false subjects. Maybe 'hɑ' or 'θa' for one of them.

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