Re: [lojban] Re: Rabbity Sand-Laugher

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/4/2001 3:50:17 AM Central Daylight Time,
araizen@newmail.net writes:

I think that most lojbanists (and if I'm wrong, I speak for myself)
want a complete language, not an elaborate way of reading logical
notation, which probably includes stretching the logical apparatus in
some ways. It certainly includes making the language complete enough
that it can be used to express "Alice" or any other book. Of all the
design features of lojban, the logic is only necessary for the logic.
It is not necessary for testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, making
the language unambiguous in the ways it is, designing a grammar that
is radically different from other languages, etc. The logic *is* a
good basis, but to insist on logic and only logic effective condemns
the language to die.

I hope that you express a general desire here, but two points arise.  1) The
logic is in fact at least historically thought necessary for the Sapir-Whorf
test because it provides a radically different langauge and because it
provides a grammatically unambiguous one, not just for the logical parts.  2)
My comment was about people who object when logic provides a solution to a
problem that arises in the language itself: "only" is the most recent
example, but there have been others stretching back through at least the last
quarter-century.  Why fuss when there is a solution and, to the point, why
reject the solution when it is certified correct by centuries of usage in
logi?  If you want an ad hoc "solution," join another language.