From lojban+bncCK7Yk5CUCxDP--XlBBoEOfzElw@googlegroups.com Sat Oct 16 03:26:39 2010 Received: from mail-vw0-f61.google.com ([209.85.212.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1P73yG-0003TP-Cz; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:39 -0700 Received: by vws4 with SMTP id 4sf583218vws.16 for ; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:30 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:mime-version:received:received:date :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender:list-subscribe :list-unsubscribe:content-type; bh=dmkVweL3V5EcLub+zn06WXjqQxpO9A4we6M4bEJjYCQ=; b=sz+VO5uX+mFUVdyKZJ062qA3Nu26DOoZK2d+v12vzjKszV07C7ELIFridB2kpv/3Fl ANyEHitrQjym5Zv4rBgDBTHOKSXPdIcAi8ZfLiJjYyHBGyM3H7eI3+ADFeR4ALMBilQM LHKki44g/o0wfI8909C1WAJZAo64F9mQjMres= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from :to:x-original-sender:x-original-authentication-results:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; b=nClVMy90VrVI2VC/kTJdybnYBSEiSlwoYtH1rbhVzsXoebn8FUGBGJO4GEAhqmN5U6 EBrHIIm9/+pns8jXNBHrWIOPbvkVpHYTxOZs4G0b171Zhv0/Fo1V5Nzk07IIL2RtrEOv VrJvubR2k8iPvDFp4iDEsZKm5pVW5urWsP7xA= Received: by 10.220.185.139 with SMTP id co11mr26008vcb.35.1287224783960; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:23 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.220.77.158 with SMTP id g30ls572774vck.3.p; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.203.6 with SMTP id fg6mr297057vcb.1.1287224781664; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.203.6 with SMTP id fg6mr297056vcb.1.1287224781647; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-qy0-f179.google.com (mail-qy0-f179.google.com [209.85.216.179]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id j32si1445397vbp.2.2010.10.16.03.26.20; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:20 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of rdentato@gmail.com designates 209.85.216.179 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.216.179; Received: by qyk36 with SMTP id 36so1627950qyk.3 for ; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:20 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.224.20.13 with SMTP id d13mr868861qab.229.1287224778265; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.229.189.67 with HTTP; Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:26:18 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 12:26:18 +0200 Message-ID: Subject: [lojban] on ambiguity From: Remo Dentato To: lojban X-Original-Sender: rdentato@gmail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of rdentato@gmail.com designates 209.85.216.179 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=rdentato@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 The discussion about the sentence: "la .alis. sipna le ri kumfa" triggered a thought that, I realized, was lingering in my mind for quite some time. One thing that I really like about Lojban is that it is syntactically unambiguous but can be semantically ambiguous at will. The key point here is "at will". The speaker can choose to structure a phrase in a certain way to (try to) convey a certain meaning or emotion to the the listener. Still I see many suggesting or implying that any ambiguity is an abomination and should be avoided at all cost. I don't subscribe this point of view. I would say that the only "wrong" sentences are those that are not grammatical, all the others can be "non-sensical" or "ambiguous" but they are not "wrong". Since it is grammatical to add a sumti after the ones that have a definite meaning, the sentence above is "correct". From a semantic point of view I really think that nobody could have a problem in understanding the implied relationship between "sleeping" and "room" and so the sentence seems perfectly fine to me. Yes I can't be 100% sure that Alice slept in that room but that would be a very special case. Adding {ne'i} would surely reduce the ambiguity but the difference to me would be really minimal. As I said, the speaker may decide to take the risk of being misunderstood and I think his choice should be respected rather than pointed out as "wrong". What I feel strange is that we, as Lojbanist, ask people that learn the language to be so flexible and sophisticated to understand things like abstractions and the space/time tenses, to to be able to pick the appropriate meaning of a gismu like {pastu} (is it a gown or a cloak?) and we complain if there's any little ambiguity. After all we have the wonderful {zo'e} and {zu'i} that clearly *require* the listener to be active. Here it is, that is what I like of Lojban. It requires *active* listeners! Not just passive word-by-word receptacles. Sometimes I feel we put too many limits on ourselves under the assumption that the listener will be too dumb to figure out by him/her-self what we are talking about. Some form of ambiguity is necessary while writing to build a climax. We can't just tell a detective story by telling who's the murderer, we need to throw a suggestion here and a suggestion there playing with the words. The sentence about {sipna} was just an example, I realized that I wanted to share my feeling toward an attitude that I think I spotted in the community. remo -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.