Re: lojbo cinmo

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

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