[lojban] Re: Why linguists might be interested in Lojban (was: RE: Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

John:
> Robin Turner scripsit:
>
> > The two Lojbanisms that really caught on amongst the players
> > were "mabla" (correct usage) and "le do mamta cu gerku" (incorrect, in
> > canonical Lojban).
>
> Well, it's *false*, but that doesn't mean it doesn't communicate.  When
> GWB says that Iran and Iraq form part of a (transnational) axis, what he
> says is surely false (they fought a 10-year war not so long ago, after all),
> but it communicates something nevertheless.
>
> This is a great example of why I think the semantics/pragmatics split is
> intellectually pernicious.

Can you explain? I utterly see why.

As you know, I and the rest of linguistics takes the opposite view, and
rightly so, because incredible though it may seem, the distinction was
not sharply drawn until Grice came along and his works circulated (in
samizdat form) through linguistics, and the transformation in quality
of work that resulted was incredible -- it was as though at one stroke
formal linguistics had been plucked out of quicksand and placed on solid ground.
I wasn't around at the time (well -- I was, but I was a child),
so I make these observations on the basis of reading of ancient linguistics
books and journals (something hardly any linguists do, anything more
than 10 years old being consigned to oblivion).

--And.