Date:  Tue, 18 Nov 1997 14:45:44 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711181945.OAA13862@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      More on lojban & language
X-To:         LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 18 14:45:57 1997
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Chris [who is having some problems in marking quotes as quotes]:
> And writes:
>
> There are many different competing and in some cases equally
> valid definitions of what counts as language, or as a language.
>
> Do any of them include metonymy?

Yes. A broad definition that seeks to account for all aspects
of language use. But I don't think that a designed/designable
language is a language by such a definition.

> But only by one of these definitions (a set of rules generating
> sentences (sound-meaning pairings)) is a language *designable*.
>
> Would inventing a rule that said "do not use metonymy" constitute language
>  design, using a definition of language which includes metonymy?

I wouldn't call it language design. Maybe "speech-community design",
or something like that. We could form some kind of community
with at least the following rules of behaviour:

  1. Use sentences generated by the rules of Lojban grammar.
  2. Do not use metonymy.

Lojban (in a Lojbabian sense) would then be a mode of behaviour.

--And