From xah@xahlee.org Tue Mar 22 16:29:02 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: xah@xahlee.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 69272 invoked from network); 23 Mar 2005 00:29:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m23.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 23 Mar 2005 00:29:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO xahlee.org) (206.130.99.40) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 23 Mar 2005 00:29:02 -0000 Received: from [192.168.40.41] ([63.197.243.251]) (authenticated) by xahlee.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id j2MNLn222642; Tue, 22 Mar 2005 16:21:49 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20050319142549.3345.qmail@web81310.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20050319142549.3345.qmail@web81310.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v619.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: <3690b81029b9b89ba7dd9072e8359a7f@xahlee.org> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:18:14 -0800 To: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619.2) X-Originating-IP: 206.130.99.40 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0 From: xah lee Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: emphasis X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=139458407 X-Yahoo-Profile: p0lyglut X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23997 On Mar 19, 2005, at 6:25 AM, John E Clifford wrote: ... --- MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com wrote: > ... > Xah, why do you think that there is a > difference in emphasis? Everything > I've read and heard tells me that they mean > exactly the same thing. I can't find the original post of the above message... but anyway, great discussion... i think this is a good illustration of one example that lojban can never become a popular human language while remaining its logical basis: in communication, people take all things into consideration, not just the content of the message. By the very fact that a language provides two ways to say the same thing, and a person made one choice, says something. May it be a personal joke, circumstantial, etc. This is one of the origin of slangs, new (illogical) coinage of words, usage, idioms etc. (if you are acquainted with the etymology of English words and idioms, you'll find all sorts of odd origins, from stories to mistakes.) imagine a practical example, where you are trying to woo a girl and say she is beautiful. It matter exactly how it is said, even if the content is semantically equivalent. (actually i think pickup lines illustrates a lot. In possibly a majority of human communication, how things are said adds significantly to the total effect of utterance.) ... i haven't had much training in linguistics (formal or otherwise)... but isn't this called pragmatics? PS am reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics now. Xah xah@xahlee.org http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html