From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Nov 22 12:51:33 1994 Message-Id: <199411221751.AA04220@nfs2.digex.net> Date: Tue Nov 22 12:51:33 1994 From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: small universe consequences In-Reply-To: <199411212135.QAA22779@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> (message from ucleaar on Mon, 21 Nov 1994 19:50:23 +0000) Status: RO ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk said ...This is the crux. I don't think the grammar says you have to consider context. General principles of communication, not language- specific, say you have to consider context. ... One of the rules of Lojban is that if you have not specified a numbered place, you should translate the utterance as if that numbered place contained {zo'e}, which is an unspecified value that makes the bridi true. (I am not sure whether you want to call this grammar rule or something else.) For example, mi klama loi zarci is: mi klama loi zarci zo'e zo'e zo'e I go/went/will go to a market from someplace, via some route, via some means For {zo'e} to work in communication between two people, the choice of the unspecified value must be such as to make the bridii true in the context. If the value makes the bridi true in some different context, people will consider the utterance false in the context that counts. In addition, for the utterance to be considered true, unspecified spatial and temporal tenses must `make sense' to the listener, that is to say, the listener must use an appropriate default tense. All this means that Lojban requires listeners and speakers to be working within a context. Incidentally, this leads one to understand the observation that many have made regarding grammatical categories in natural languages, namely that speakers `effortlessly' employ categories built into the grammar. Dyirbal speakers mark entities as belonging to the `balan' category, which includes `women, fire, and dangerous things'. English speakers mark entities as singular or plural and in the past, present or future. In so far as the entities being classified are part of the default or context, then it will take little effort to make the classification. Lojban is interesting in that default context is seldom expressed continuously; in English and other natural languages, on the other hand, certain categories of the default context are always expressed. 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