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

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:41:28 +0100

nitcion:
#This time, I disagree with And. Sorry, dude, but when we get into
#linguistics instead of logic, we too have ideological differences. :-)

I'm not sure where we disagree....

#Linguistics has been plagued by confusion about 'topic'. There are three
#correlated (but alas, not identical) notions of 'topic'. One is covered by
#{bi'u}, and is given vs. new information: think of it as Background/Foreground. 

Agreed.

#The second is the key information vs. the non-key information in a sentence; 
#that's what's usually meant by Topic/Focus. 

I agree, except that I think that the practise of calling non-key info 'topic'
is unfortunate & gives rise to much confusion. So let's knock it on the head
in this discussion.

#The third is what the sentence is about, vs. what the sentence says about what
#it's about; that's Topic/Comment, or Theme/Rheme, and Lojban (clunkily)
#has been said to simulate this by prenex.

I agree. I would like to reserve 'Topic' for this sense.

#Key vs. non-key is what is being meant here. I don't think this *is*
#{ba'e} vs. {ba'enai}, because you can emphasise things for all sorts of
#reasons. 

I agree.

#But it is the primary meaning of contrastive stress in English,
#and cleft. 

I agree.

#They often secondarily mean Comment or New as well, but not
#primarily.

Me being defo dead dilettante in this area of linguistics, I would say that
all focus is Comment and (de facto) New, but not vice versa, and that
English it-clefts always do focus.

#Logicosemantics has been left to attitudinals in the past. I offer {da'i}
#and {kau} as an example. 

Ah, so here is where you disagree with me, is it?

Rather than argue about those examples, I will grant your point in
principle, but I would also claim that certain logical operators were
assigned to cmavo shoved in UI as a quick-and-dirty solution, so that
the ability of the language to express the meanings was not retarded
by long debate and researches about the proper logical analysis.

But in the current situation we have no UI that is a dedicated
focus marker, so we have the choice of (a) coopting a cmavo that
has some other function (or, similar, reclaiming kau), (b) adding an
experimental cmavo, or ©) ©) [can't turn fucking AutoCorrect off]
( c ) using the structural means I've been advocating our
exploration of.

#So it is not outlandish that this be covered by an attitudinal, rather 
#than logicosemantics. 

Not outlandish, no. But still, do we have to go straight to option
(a) or (b) without trying ( c )?

#In fact, whether Focus is a
#matter of pragmatics or logicosemantics is itself an ideological question
#in linguistics. 

That's really two issues conflated -- is it part of pragmatic or semantic/encoded
meaning?, and is its proper (e.g. cognitive) representation a (quasi)logical one?

#And realistically, an attitudinal is all we can do without a complete overhaul 
#of the language.

This I don't agree with. I think that Lojban probably already has the necessary
resources, and where it doesn't there is likely to be a demand for them.
It's already clear that it's doable whrn the focus is a single sumti. And for
other cases, such as

What John is is fond of himself

I can readily imagine someone wanting to say that not only as a focusing
construction but also as an answer to "la djon mo?" 

#Like I say, I don't think it is ba'e or kau, but I can't see the solution
#to be that different from either.
#
#I'm starting to suspect the solution is {ra'u}, actually. If you apply it
#to individual phrases rather than entire sentences, I think we can
#convince ourselves that it's doing focussing.

Well, that's not a daft suggestion. Although I think Lojbab's
exhortation for there to be canonical examples of all cmavo is not
a good use of our limited labours, for most cmavo, canonical examples 
of the discursives would certainly be a great help. 

Anyway, even if

la djan ra'u klama

works, the strategy in

da poi ke'a klama cu du la djan

should still be explored.

--And.