Return-Path: Message-Id: <9208241643.AA22620@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Mon Aug 24 18:39:56 1992 Reply-To: Richard Kennaway Sender: Lojban list Comments: Warning -- original Sender: tag was jrk@UK.AC.UEA.SYS.S5 From: Richard Kennaway Subject: Examples of unambiguous nonsense? X-To: loglanists@ucsd.edu, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Aug 24 18:39:56 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.bitnet!LOJBAN I hope crossposting to the Loglan and Lojban lists is ok. My topic is independent of the details of either language. On another mailing list, the topic of logical languages has come up, with some people taking the view that a "logical language" would be limiting to thought. I am trying to argue that in fact a logical language is more likely to be liberating. One point is that the unambiguity of Loglan and Lojban makes it possible to speak "nonsense" and still be understood, without activating conscious or unconscious mechanisms for forcing a "sensible" interpretation of whatever one hears, which the ambiguity of natural languages makes necessary. However, I haven't thought of a good example of this. Can anyone provide a Loglan or Lojban utterance which expresses an intelligible, if unusual, thought, which one would have difficulty in getting across in English? (The mailing list in question is a private one, which I don't feel I should name here. It is devoted to, um, metaprogramming experiences.) -- Richard Kennaway SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K. Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk