Subject: RE: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions

From: Nick Nicholas <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 14:46:56 -0700

cu'u la xod.

> And why must Lojban express every nuance of English?

?!

Lojban must be able to be as expressive as any human language. It is so by
design and ideology and intent. Besides, focus is as basic a nuance to
human communication as any.

I know we've got ideological differences about Lojban up the wazoo, but how
can you imply Lojban needn't distinguish between "It was John that Bill
helped" and "It was Bill that helped John"? Every language does that,
because every language has to express what in a sentence you're actually
concentrating on; it's the "robots" you bemoan that wouldn't. How languages
do this is of course different --- most of them do it with word order; and
I'm not convinced And is right that it should be logicosemantic rather than
pragmatic (i.e., in Lojban terms, attitudinal.) (And, remind me: is is
pragmatic in Chinese, or does Chinese pull out particles?)

But a Lojban less expressive than English? In something as basic as focus?
No thanks.

Nick Nicholas, UCI, USA. [email-masked]
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis
"Must I, then, be the only one to be beheaded now?" "Why, did you want
everybody to be beheaded for your consolation?" Epictetus, Discourses 1.1.