Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: mi kakne lo bajra

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 3:16 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>  To change the
> main universe of discourse requires the collaboration of the interlocutors,
> which must be consciously and overtly given.

I don't think I have ever consciously and overtly collaborated in the
changing of the universe of discourse in a conversation. If I do it
overtly, it must be unconscious, because I don't really know what the
rules for doing it are.

The only thing I can think of is by omission, i.e. by refraining from
saying "there is no such thing as X" every time someone introduces
something X new to the conversation. But that omission wouldn't count
as overt, and it's hardly conscious, since the normal, unconscious
reaction is to accept any new things mentioned as part of the universe
of discourse and go on from there.

Perhaps in technical or philosophical discussions, when asking the
interlocutor to define some specific term they are using. That might
count as negotiating the universe of discourse. Or even perhaps in an
ordinary conversation when the other person uses a word I'm unfamiliar
with. But the reaction then would never be "there are no Xs", the
reaction would be "what is an X?".

I can't imagine a negotiation to introduce unicorns or cats or
computers or teleporters into an ordinary conversation.  You just talk
about them.

>  For
> example, your second example, second sentence -- which does involve raising --

How does "la djan cu so'e roi tavla mi lo cevni" involve raising?

It does not involve raising by the definition of raising given in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_(linguistics)

"In linguistics, raising is a form of argument control in which an
argument that belongs semantically to a subordinate clause is realized
syntactically as a constituent of a higher clause."

There is no subordinate clause in the example for any of the three
arguments realized syntactically as constituents of the higher clause
to be raised from. So you must have in mind some other definition of
"raising".

>> Indeed, his remark
>> might well be a reminder that the universe of the dialog does not encompass
>> unicorns
[...]
> "the universe of the dialogue" is ambiguous,
[...]
>  (by the way, for me, the expression "universe of discourse" is not
> ambiguous).

Nor for me. But "the universe of the dialogue" can be, because it
suggests "the universe where the dialogue takes place" instead of the
universe of discourse.

I just don't see how anyone can nonchalantly make a remark that the
universe of discourse does not encompass this or that right after
someone else has mentioned it. It may make a lot of sense to remark
that the world where the dialogue takes place does not encompass it,
but remarking that the universe of discourse does not encompass it
seems completely unintuitive and counter to all rules of conversation.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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