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Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 09:19:00 -0400
From: Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
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To:  lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Quick Reference Guide for language words
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Joel Shellman wrote:
>>>But we must now inquire more closely into the meaning of such
>>>phrases. If X is a short man, does this mean that he is short and a
>>>man?
> 
> The "man" part restricts us to the set of all men. The "short" further
> restricts it only insofar as, there is a non-trivial set (which should
> be defined by context in order for reasonable communication) for which
> it would be appropriate to use the term short for this specific man in
> relation to the other members of the set.
> 
> Now... in English, that set could be limited to a subset of all men,
> OR it could be the larger set of all humans--or some other set in
> between. I'm curious... are tanru strict in implying that the set must
> be a subset of the modificand?

No.  That is the norm, but not a requirement.

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=193
sections 14 and 15 discuss a wide range of tanru that are possible

>>>How blue does a house have to be to be blue?
> 
> As blue as it would be required for some person to apply the term blue
> to it. In other words, all that is stated is that there is a
> relationship between the house and the term blue. The nature of that
> relationship would likely have to be inferred by context.

In other words, it is potentially a figurative relationship.

>>>In Loglan we surmise, with most logicians, that such questions are
>>>unanswerable by direct analysis. We suppose that the meanings of
>>>predicate expressions formed of two or more constituent predicate
>>>ideas are like the meanings of simple predicates themselves:
>>>essentially unitary and unanalyzable.
> 
> Unanalyzable? I mean, from the phrase "blue house" one can analyze
> it--that there is something which could be considered "house-like" and
> that it has some relationship with the concept of "blue-like". That is
> an "analysis", but is it such a vague analysis that it remains to be
> considered unanalyzable? 

I think he means (by his invocation of "logicians) that from the 
standpoint of logic it is unanalyzable - cannot be decomposed 
unambiguously into some combination of components which might be easier 
to logically evaluate.

>>>blue house. Like houses themselves, or blue things, you have to be
>>>shown one to really know. And intellectual dwarfs? Well, here again
>>>it is not the art of logical inference, but a sense of irony that
>>>helps one to understand this phrase; that and having heard the phrase
>>>'intellectual giant', with which it strongly contrasts.
> 
> Given the restriction of no unrelated meanings, the metaphoric
> intellectual giant I would expect is impossible in lojban--or perhaps
> what I mean is that it would not be metaphoric. Would you say
> "intellectual man-of-great-physical-size"? You might, but it would not
> mean what we generally mean in English by intellectual giant. Perhaps
> I'm missing something?

Is a "giant" necessarily of "great physical size".  In English it is 
not, as evidenced by ... "intellectual giant".

In Lojban we have a *little* more constraint, in that the place 
structure of the modificand must be accounted for in a tanru.  But one 
can still be quite creative even with that restriction, because even a 
selbri with all the places filled in can be applied "metaphorically" to 
the tanru relationship.

>>we chose to assign a gismu-root word to
>>refer to the specific Loglandic/Lojbanic concept, and abandon the use of
>>the possibly confusing English word.  In all of the cases where we
>>started using Lojban words, the motivation was the same - to avoid the
>>conflicting definitions of the corresponding English terminology.
> 
> Makes very good sense to me. I saw a review of lojban by someone who
> complained about exactly this. I don't think he got the point. Trying
> to put your language views onto another language can be useful as an
> initial learning path, but at some point, will likely become a
> hindrance and require to be unlearned before achieving mastery of the
> new language.

That was certainly the case for me, especially when I was trying to 
teach others, which is why I started using the Lojban words instead of 
the English words (can you imagine having this "metaphor" discussion 
*every* time you teach a new person? - call it a tanru, and the 
discussion usually isn't necessary).

lojbab