Subject: zo'e interpretation

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 01:41:08 +0100

from pc's new opus:

#The fact that the term is really there but specified only
#contextually, informally, conventionally, opens the possibility
#for misunderstandings that affect the course of discussion: the
#term that is not seen affects the truth of the sentence nonetheless,
#so if two people have different understandings of what that term
#is (based on slightly different grasp of context or convention),
#they may end up disagreeing on what is said, even when they agree
#about the fully stated situation. Or the opposite, for that matter.
#This has led to occasional efforts to make Lojban more like FOPL
#by insisting that all terms always be stated or that, at least,
#there is a unique way of restoring unstated terms (more informative
#than {zo’e}) that can always be applied when misunderstandings
#appear. Even the proponents of such moves find them impossible to
#stick to in general writing or conversation, even for very special
#narrow cases, but the efforts recur periodically.

While accepting that such moves aren't part of Lojban, I am
nonetheless a proponent of such moves, and I don't accept that they
can't be stuck to. I won't go into details of what I propose, but
the essence is that the zo'e is interpreted so as to be equivalent
to the weakest possible claim, and that the weakest possible claim
can be griceanly strengthened until it achieves relevance.

--And.