From nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU Mon Aug 2 20:06:20 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 2 Aug 1993 20:06:19 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4132; Mon, 02 Aug 93 20:05:13 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8657; Mon, 02 Aug 93 20:06:43 EDT Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 10:04:07 +1000 Reply-To: Nick Nicholas Sender: Lojban list From: Nick Nicholas Subject: Discourse Analysis & Pragmatics X-To: Lojban Mailing List To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: <7y7IhgcFTOO.A.IbH.fy0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Not that this is that constructive a comment; but I've been studying the latter this semester, and the former last semester, and am continuously amused by the way in which Lojban development has neglected these fields of linguistics, and so finds itself confounded by them. The whole tense issue, for example, is an issue of temporal deixis relativisation, snugly part of pragmatics. The applicability of Gricean maxims to Lojban is another issue which occasionally gets raised (thence the goat's legs debate). There is good reason for the language designers to be reticent to prescribe something as fluid as pragmatics, it's obvious that some leading-the-way has to be done from time to time, and I do hope Lojbanists out there read more pragmatics texts alongside their Quine. (Deixis would translate as pu'e vlaja'o, wouldn't it, as opposed to anaphorisation, pu'e vlaba'i). ******************************************************************************* A freshman once observed to me: Nick Nicholas am I, of Melbourne, Oz. On the edge of the Rubicon, nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo) men don't go fishing. CogSci and CompSci & wannabe Linguist. - Alice Goodman, _Nixon In China_ Mail me! Mail me! Mail me! Or don't!!