Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 15:24:47 -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>
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And:
>Suppose I know you saw Sophy kiss Edgar, and I know you know she'd
>been angry with him and refusing to have any physical contact with
>him. I say to you "Sophy kissed Edgar", as a result of which you
>realize that Sophy must have forgiven Edgar --- that is the context-
>dependent meaning.

You've picked an example sentence where your conception of
utterance->grammatical-meaning->context-dependent-meaning is a pretty good
model.  I'd like to answer with a different example which is a particularly
good example of *my* position, but it'll require some context (of course :-)).

Consider the joke about the ranch where the three sons of the original owner
continue to raise cattle.  It's called the Focus Ranch, because it's where
the sons raise meat.

"Where the sons raise meat" (when heard, of course, not read) is ambiguous,
since it could be "Where the sun's rays meet".  However, given the right
build-up to the phrase, the listener will only hear it one way or the other,
and it seems funny only later when the ambiguity is pointed out.  In this
case, the contextual disambiguation clearly happens, at least in part,
before any grammatical derivation can occur.

What is the grammatically determined meaning of [sUnzreizmit]?  The question
is meaningless, out of context.

>Now, I ask you: Where do you think the information "at some time
>prior to the utterance 'kissed', there were some event(s) of kissing,
>the kisser being Sophy and the kissee being Edgar" fits in? Does
>this have anything to do with the meaning of the utterance?

Where does "on a continuing basis, there is some process of 'raising' going
on, the raisers being the sons and the raisee being meat" fit in?  Sometime
after the point where we've determined from context that [reiz] is a verb,
not a plural noun.  This requires analysis of the context.

>Next, where in the grammar are the rules that tell you "Given the
>sentence 'Sophy kissed Edgar', derive the proposition that Sophy
>has forgiven Edgar"? Nowhere. There are no such rules.

True.

>Next, where in the grammar are the rules that tell you "Given the
>sentence 'Sophy kissed Edgar', derive the proposition that at some
>time prior to the utterance 'kissed', there were some event(s) of
>kissing, the kisser being Sophy and the kissee being Edgar'"? Had
>I enough time and intelligence I'd write out the grammar of
>English and point out the relevant rules to you.

Where in *what* grammar?  "English grammar"s are useful inventions of
linguists, and they are not all identical.  An English Grammar would not be
useful if it contained a hard and fast derivation like that for "Sophy
kicked the bucket", that didn't consider the pragmatics *before* reaching
the final proposition of "Sophy died" or "Sophy hit a container with her foot".

>What have I said to indicate that I hold semantics in especial
>reverence (or pragmatics in contempt)?

Maybe reverence isn't the word, but primacy.  I read you as claiming that
semantics is prior to pragmatics, in some schematic of how the brain
processes langauge, and I don't think that's necessarily so.  The two things
are intertwined.

>> If the 'grammatical meaning' is not influenced by the context, then
>> it's an artificial construct that bears little relation to real human
>> communication.
>
>What are your arguments? I say the grammar says "'twenty' means 20",
>and that a general theory of communication, such as Sperber & Wilson's
>Relevance Theory, can explain how, if the grammar says what I say
>it does, in a given context the utterance "twenty" can mean
>'approximately 20', or 'give me another banana'.

If Sperber and Wilson merely say that "twenty" can mean any of these things,
then I have no argument with them.  But if they claim there's a fixed
English grammar, with fixed rules like chess, that derive 20 from twenty,
and THEN another process gets 'give me another banana' from 20 and the
context, I disagree.  It doesn't explain the pun, or homonyms in general.

>What can I say? The only way to resolve the issue is to go and do
>some linguistics based on those assumptions.

Your assumption leads to the conclusion that people can't learn "le" vs.
"lo" without resort to onerous social stigma.  My assumption leads to the
conclusion that they can naturally become part of the rules of a language.
What better experiment than Lojban?

>> .i ko bazi ba'o .a'o bilma
>
>I am considerably improved, thank you, and hoping to discover some
>gluttony in time for Crimbo.

What is Crimbo?
                     ____
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