Message-Id: <199502101100.AA13484@nfs2.digex.net> From: ucleaar Date: Fri Feb 10 06:00:56 1995 Subject: Re: jorne 09 Feb 95 07:08:26 EST.) <199502091208.AA04119@access4.digex.net> X-From-Space-Date: Fri Feb 10 06:00:56 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Lojbab: > You can call it that. I would call it a garna se dandu bukpu. > It certainly isn't a lanci to me, zi'o or no zi'o. That it is not a lanci is precisely my point. And if a patterned oblong of cloth fluttering from a flagpole cannot be a lanci be ziho then {ziho} is of no use whatever. > Note that there is nothing even in English flags that requires > them to be oblong. Oblongness is a non-defining feature of flags such that it affects the extent to which a flag is a typical flag and for something that only partly fits the defining features of flags, oblongness will affect the extent to which it is categorized as a flag. > BTW, my dictionary (American as it may be) specifically mentions symbolism as > an integral part of the defintion for flag Dictionaries are reference utilities for the world at large, not accurate representations of the vocabulary of a language. (As for the dictionary being American, most of the best dictionaries are.) And as for the symbol being "integral" - which I shall take as meaning a defining feature - defining features can (for some predicates) be organized disjunctively (except perhaps in Lojban) so that not all defining features need apply for something to qualify as a bona fide member of the category in question. An example is "climb": X climbs if X clambers OR if X moves upwards. If either or both of these conditions is met, then X climbs, while if neither is met then X does not climb. The defining features of FLAG are similarly organized, in part at least. This of course cannot be true of lanci: the defining features entailed by unzihoed sumti places must always be met by any putative sumti. --- And