Message-Id: <199308141221.AA01455@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 1993 01:25:56 EDT
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>
Subject:      Re: TEXT: Imagist
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

MA> Lojban seems to violate the usual pragmatic maxims of cooperation
MA> between speaker and addressee... Here the blank line + context
MA> implied an ".i", though to a true Lojbanist this is a rosy
MA> invitation to go ahead & parse the discourse in a way patently
MA> not indended by the speaker. Fair enough.

On the contrary, the underlying Lojban philsophy is that it is the speaker's
obligation to provide all information necessaryto understand what is being said
to the listener.  The experience of the natlangs in miscommunications, suggest
that this is more informatiion than typical speakers provide if left to
natlang habits.  There is also more toleration of errors.

But if you are writing to an uncertain audience (as all of us are), talking to
a computer, and all manner of other Lojbanic things, there will miscommunciation
when you misestimate the language.

A blank line does NOT mean end of sentence, certainly not when a creative
and norm-challenging poet like you is writing, And.  I therefore claim that
when you challenge norms as much as you do, you need to make much more room
for your audience than you would in a natlang.  (This is not to mention
the fact that on the net, a blank line often means a typo - I can't retract
a carriage return once typed into my terminal without messing with unix
 editors.,
which I refuse to do.

lojbab