Re: lojbo cinmo

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx]

At 10:56 AM 2/23/99 +0800, sdlee@cs.hku.hk wrote:
>>>>>> "Bob" == Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) <lojbab@lojban.org> writes:
>"le logji bangu", by definition, expresses that it is the speaker's
>own SUBJECTIVE opinion that this language is "logical".

This is not correct, though your following sentence is:

>The speaker
>may, if he likes, use "le logji bangu" to refer to something that is
>not a language and not a logical thing at all.

There need not be anything subjective about a statement with "le". The use
of "le"
means that the sumti being referred to is being "described as", and this
description may be a matter of convenience rather than of subjectivity.
There is certainly nothing about "le logji bangu" that requires someone to
hold any opinion about Lojban's logicality, merely that s/he feels that
that description will help the listener identify what is being talked about.

> Bob> The phrase "the logical language Lojban" strikes me more as
> Bob> being an adjectival phrase, helping people to recall that
> Bob> Lojban is both a language and purports to have something to
> Bob> do with logic, rather than being a claim that no other
> Bob> language is logical.
>
>This is different. "The logical language Lojban" is different from
>"the logical language". The articles in these 2 phrases have
>different semantic effects. Without context, the latter would be used
>to refer to the ONLY logical language of the world, implying that
>there are no other logical languages. The former, on the other hand,
>just means "the logical language which is called Lojban", with the
>implication that there are other logical languages which have
>different names.

English is ambiguous between the two semantic interpretations - one cannot
make implications that there are or are not other logical languages without
context.

>Compare "The logical language Lojban" with "Lojban, the logical
>language". Are they different? Compare the latter with "Lojban, a
>logical language". Any difference?

Not much in the absence of context.

lojbab