[lojban] Re: tanru exercise

["keighvin" <keighvin@gmail.com>]

> > It's an article of faith that people are supposed to be able to
understand 
> > a lujvo, or its underlying tanru, that they have never heard
before.  
> > Usually it works pretty well, but this one fell on its face.  
> 
> No, I think the test worked very well.  It just shows that the
concept is not 
> one that people were familiar enough with to know what you were
talking 
> about, especially since there was NO context at all, which is
unrealistic.

Which brings up the question of context in general.  Most idioms rely
on the familiarity of the listener/reader with an implied context for
completion.  As has already been indicated here, the context was not
common enough to be readily understood (DNA was not included in any
portion of the phrase despite the direct and immediate association
with the same).

In a language such as lojban then, with such a focus on the exactness
of communication and lack of ambiguitiy, when does it become
appropriate to rely on an assumption of pre-existing cultural context,
and when should a statement be extended (and by how much/to what
degree of granularity) to carry the additional meaning itself?

- .kaivyn



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