From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199412192214.AA13267@access2.digex.net>
Subject: Re: reply: (1) veridicality; (2) plurality
To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu (Lojban List)
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 17:14:46 -0500 (EST)
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group)
In-Reply-To: <199412092337.AA05006@nfs1.digex.net> from "ucleaar" at Dec 9, 94 08:10:25 pm
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la kris. cusku di'e

> > Semantics is about the meanings of utterances, and meaning has to
> > to with what's been communicated.

la .and. cusku di'e

> Perhaps this is the root of our disagreement. Standardly, semantics
> is about only the grammatically-determined meaning of utterances,
> while it is *pragmatics* that has to do with what's been communicated.
> "Meaning" is too broad a notion for semantics, and too narrow a
> notion for pragmatics. I only use the word when being deliberately
> vague.

I wish to interject my opinion here: the distinction between semantics and
pragmatics, as defined here, is a Pernicious Evil, introduced only out of
somebody's desire to have a triad of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Semantics in And's sense is essentially a theory of meaning that kicks out
all the hard cases, leaving them to a ragbag which it labels "pragmatics".

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").

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.

> > If A tells B, using sentence S, that C is bald, and
> > C is in fact bald, then it's the semanticist's job to analyze S and
> > see how it communicated the fact,
> 
> This is the pragmatician's job, not the semanticist's. (I mean it's
> the pragmatician's job to see how S communicates.)
> 
> > not to assign an independent and arbitrary truth value to S and claim
> > that A and B are uninterested in the truth.
> 
> Semanticists do assign truth values to propositions. I don't know what
> an independent and arbitrary truth value is.

Independent of the communicative circumstances, that is.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.