Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 14:47:46 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711181947.OAA13940@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: What is Loglan/Lojban X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1572 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 18 14:47:59 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Lojbab (to Ashley): > >>I do not presume to exclude this from language. > > > >Languages have no place making such rules. > > How can we possibly know what is or is not the limit of language. It's a definitional issue, not an empirical one. Me and Ashley seem to agree that the limits on what counts as a designable language exlude matters pragmatic. You then say you too take it to be a definitional issue: > I'm > far from being a Chomskyan, but the boundary between biology and > conscious choice in expression is quite uncertain. As fir what is > language - I think it is a matter of definition. I choose to include > all means of expression which CAN be consciously controlled at least in > part. Lojban as a language design can prescribe for that entire range > of expression. Whether people will or will not follow that prescription > is of course an individual decision. This definition of the Loglan project is news to me. If it is LLG policy, there ought to be a far more explicit articulation of it. I doubt, for example, that any linguist would realize, from the available documentation, that the scope of the project was as broad as this. > But Lojban is also among other things designed to test the sapir-Whorf > Hypothesis. If it did nothing that "language has no place doing" in > terms of possible effect on human thought and culture, then it pretty > much could NOt have a SWH -related effect. I seem to remember having replied to this previously. (One effect of my system crash was that old mail got sent to me as if it was new mail.) --And