Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:33:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.30) id 1AwrTp-0006aL-4P for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:33:17 -0800 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:33:17 -0800 To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: (no subject) Message-ID: <20040227233316.GB1544@digitalkingdom.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 540 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners Content-Length: 1679 On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 11:59:29AM -0600, melissa@fastanimals.com wrote: > My understanding is that Lojban, like Loglan before it, has a goal of > making irrational statements impossible. I assume that I could make a > statement that "green clouds sleep furiously," but that's semantics. > Purely syntactically, it should be impossible to make a statement > which is valid yet senseless. I believe that what you're trying to say is that a syntactically valid sentence in Lojban always has *some* semantic meaning, even if that meaning is obscure or bizarre or wrong or impossible or whatever. > If that is the case, what meaning would be taken from > > mi dunda ma ko > > It's part question and part command. I don't believe that the *semantic* meaning of that sentence is currently well-defined, but it means something like: "You must let me give you *something*! What do you want me to give you?" > One possible translataion might be "Take whatever you want from me, > but you're required to take something." > > Or perhaps "Act in such a way that I will give you the reward of your > choice." Both of those are excellent. > Or, as a third option, "Behave such that I'll give *what* to you?" > with the other party supposed to respond "Ice cream!" or some other > previously promised reward and thereby be reminded of the inspiration > for obeying. Possible, but unwieldy. -Robin -- Me: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** I'm a *male* Robin. "Constant neocortex override is the only thing that stops us all from running out and eating all the cookies." -- Eliezer Yudkowsky http://www.lojban.org/ *** .i cimo'o prali .ui