Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 12:26:26 -0700
From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Subject: Re: reply: (1) veridicality; (2) plurality
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Message-id: <01HKVM5VCPZA00017B@FIPORT.FUNET.FI>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 2374
Lines: 48

>John:
>> I also find the idea of "grammatically determined meaning" hard to swallow:
>> it reminds me of Mark Twain's infamous word-by-word "translation" of his
>> story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" back from French
>> into English, whereby "I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's
>> different'n any other frog." becomes something that (because it is
>> ungrammatical) I can't remember, but it was horrifying (I do recall that
>> "ne...pas" becomes "not...not").

And:
>I don't understand why you are reminded of this. The grammatically
>determined meaning of "Sophy kissed Edgar" is, roughly, "at some
>time prior to the utterance 'kissed', there were some event(s) of
>kissing, the kisser being Sophy and the kissee being Edgar".
>
>In context, of course, a whole lot more information can be implied
>by such an utterance.

A lot more, maybe, or something entirely different.  I'm puzzled by a theory
of language which assigns a 'grammatically determined meaning' to a sentence
which is different from its *real* meaning, i.e. the information it conveys
in context.  I think what John is vocalizing better than I could is that it
seems strange to hold what you call the grammatical meaning in such
reverence, when it depends on artificially removing a sentence from the very
context that makes it meaningful.  If the 'grammatical meaning' is not
influenced by the context, then it's an artificial construct that bears
little relation to real human communication.

>> Having worked painfully to construct semantic accounts of the Lojban yacc/BNF
>> grammar, I find that appeals to non-compositional constructions are
>> constantly required, and that there is no natural separation between
>> a compositional semantic and a non-compositional pragmatic level.
>
>Don't understand - sorry.

Take your chess analogy -- I think he's arguing that language is *not* like
chess; it would be more like a game where the rules can change somewhat
based on the strategy a player chooses.

>I am ill at the mo, & my mind is frighteningly feeble.

.i ko bazi ba'o .a'o bilma

  ____    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  \  /    Chris Bogart          ftp://ftp.csn.org/cbogart/html/homepage.html
   \/     Quetzal Consulting    cbogart@quetzal.com
          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~