Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 07:24:59 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712131224.HAA15681@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: la'e X-To: cowan@DRV.CBC.COM X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1501 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Dec 13 07:25:01 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Cowan: >Logical Language Group wrote: > >> It makes sense to me. Indeed anything in Lojban makes sense if the >> listener can ascribe meaning to it. > >That works only if you have an independent criterion for ascribing >meaning. Otherwise, Lojban looks like Xoinglish (Nora's variant of >English in which all sentences begin with "Xoi" meaning "It may or >may not be true that ..." and so are all true). If I am allowed >to insert my own criteria of meaning, then we can interpret any >sentence as anything. The independent criterion in my book is either feedback from the speaker that indicates that the listener has understood the speaker, or a pattern of analysis that offers results repeatedly consistent with the universe of discourse (i.e. generally the real world). In short, correctness of meaning is pragmatic - of it works, it is a valid meaning. Since we have no official theory of semantics in Lojban pragmatics is the ultiumate judge of successful understanding. (but of course this still says nothing about "goodness" of Lojban). lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.