From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Jun 1 12:29:42 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 1 Jun 1993 06:32:53 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0108; Tue, 01 Jun 93 06:31:58 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 9948; Tue, 01 Jun 93 06:33:15 EDT Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1993 11:29:42 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: how to say To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: Rick Morneau answers me: >Colin Fine writes: >> >> 'Looking through a window' is NOT the same as 'looking through a >> telescope'. Consider 'looking through a momentary gap between >> passers-by'. >> >I would suggest that the stereotypical interpretation of "looking >through a window" includes the concepts in both the "telescope" and >"gap" examples. What you must decide is whether Lojban covers this >particular combined semantic domain. If not, then you must either >attach it to the closest existing domain or create a new one. > >In this case, I chose the instrumental interpretation because a >window is a man-made artifact with a particular "instrumental" >function. I imagine that Lojban is sufficiently robust to implement >it either way, depending on what the speaker wishes to emphasize. As >for the "gap" example, since a "gap" is clearly a channel, you >probably want to translate "looking through" to indicate the channel >concept. In some circumstances, however, you may want to translate it >as instrumental to indicate that you are using the gap as an >"instrument" or "tool" to accomplish an end. If you want to translate >"I'm looking through my files", you would need a third concept. This makes me uncomfortable, and I'm not sure if it's what Rick's saying, or just the way he's expressing it. He says "whether Lojban covers this ... domain" and "Lojban is sufficiently robust to .." as though Lojban is a bit of technology that has or hasn't some capability. But when you say "speak Lojban" that doesn't commit you to a single way of expressing things. "Lojban covers [some] domain" is meaningless: the particular words and expressions of Lojban cover various domains, and I frequently find I can make distinctions in Lojban which I can just about grasp but cannot express clearly in English. To me, the concepts in "looking through a window" and "looking through a telescope" *are* significantly different, so what you refer to a the 'stereotypical interpretation' is a bit of English confusion or ambiguity, which I would prefer not to be reproduced in Lojban. Thus if you write "viska sepi'o lo canko" I will understand it as "see using a window", and think of something different from what I would understand from "viska fi'o pagre lo canko", "viska pa'o lo canko" or "canko viska" - though I may possibly translate them all as "see through the window". When you say "attach it to the closest existing domain or create a new one" I guess you are describing what I and everybody does in translating into Lojban (or any other language), but it seems all arsy versy to me. There is a particular semantic relationship I wish to express: I use the resources of the language to express that as well as I need to in the context - the description in terms of 'covering this demain' or failing that, finding a best match, seems unsatisfactory. I accept that you had reasons for choosing the instrumental interpretation. I repeat that to me this would convey something different from the normal interpretation of the English "looking through the window". I don't know what it means to descirbe Lojban as robust: there are many forms of expression available to the Lojban speaker, and often they are distinct in ways which are not easy to translate. You could indeed regard a gap as a tool like a telescope, though this is relatively unlikely. The fact that you give the example of "looking through my files" disturbs me, because it suggests that you are thinking at the level of words. "Look through [files]" is an *utterly* different concept from "look through [a window or a telescope]" and is no way germane to the argument. Colin ======================================================================== There's a monkey on my shoulder | Colin Fine and it's telling me lies | Dept of Computing Just to stop me ever seeing | University of Bradford what's in front of my eyes. | Bradford, W. Yorks, England It tells me what the world is like| BD7 1DP and how I ought to be, | Tel: 0274 733680 (h), 383915 (w) And just what's gonna happen | c.j.fine@bradford.ac.uk if I ever dare be me. | 'Morris dancers do it with bells on' ========================================================================