Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0qofAT-00001DC; Sun, 25 Sep 94 01:02 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1312; Sun, 25 Sep 94 01:00:37 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1307; Sun, 25 Sep 1994 01:00:36 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4131; Sat, 24 Sep 1994 23:59:21 +0200 Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 18:01:14 -0400 Reply-To: "Robert J. Chassell" Sender: Lojban list From: "Robert J. Chassell" Subject: Re: metonymy X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva In-Reply-To: <9409241909.AA17817@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> (message from ucleaar on Sat, 24 Sep 1994 20:07:02 +0100) Content-Length: 2137 Lines: 51 On the subject of metonymy: unless this is built in to the grammar, it is a matter of pragmatics, and if it is a matter of pragmatics it isn't, strictly speaking, pertinent to a debate on the semantic component of the grammar. Depends what you mean by `built in'. In as much as Lojban has {noi} and {poi} to specify referents to sumti, most of what you say most of the time in Lojban is a short form for what you could say more specifically in some grammatically correct longer form. It is the same in a natural language such as English, except the minimal specifiers are different. English uses a bunch of terms, `a', `the', `some', `any', plus plural and singular, as its minimal specifiers. I need a box. I need the box. Lojban also uses a bunch of such terms, but their meanings are different from English. The categories for short forms are different. Most peculiarly, Lojban has a term indicating truth, `that which really is', as well as one meaning `that which I designate'. mi nitcu lo tanxe mi nitcu le tanxe In neither English nor Lojban do the terms *necessarily* specify the box, although they may. The presumption in English is that a listener is helped if he or she is told whether the needed box is `the' box, or `a' box. The presumption in Lojban is that a listener is helped if he, she or it is told whether the needed box is `for-real', or something else that I might be designating as a box in my mind, or a mathematical set of boxes. The minimal specifiers of the two languages are different. We often translate `lo' into English `a', and `le' into `the', but such translations are not very accurate. Better to say `that which really is' and `that which I designate as' for `lo' and `le'. A future research topic might be: does a fluent thinker in Lojban unconsciously find more things that `might be designated as boxes, but are not really boxes' than a person who is fluent only in English? -- Robert J. Chassell bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu 25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA (413) 298-4725