Subject: Re: [lojban] response to And

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2002 22:38:16 -0500 (EST)

And Rosta scripsit:

> Is it just bears, or also other animals?

Sure, other animals too.

> How about Claes Oldenburg
> sculptures? Are they +furniture +stuffed?

No context for this. Stuffed furniture is much closer to the prototype
than Larry is to the prototype bear.

> I. Gismu are defined as broadly as possible (but still with 
> boundaries that are in principle clear)
> II. Category membership follows principles of prototype theory rather
> than Aristotelian ones (so boundaries are fuzzy or outright gradient).
> III. For practical purposes, statements should be evaluated in terms
> not of literal meaning but of the meaning that is patently intended to be
> communicated.

Well, I reject III and can live with either I or II.

> I threequarters believe you hold your philosophy on this matter just
> for the pleasure of its perversity. I should know, because I do it
> myself sometimes. But not on this issue...

Ho.

But really, claiming "I have no idea what some cmavo means" is just
nonsense at the level of pragmatic meaning. We may not know *everything*
about what certain cmavo mean, but to claim that there are some cmavo
about which we know *nothing* (at the l. of p. m.) is nonsense. Claiming
we know nothing about a cmavo, however, makes perfect sense if by it
you mean that you have no *theory* of its "semantic" meaning.

-- 
John Cowan [email-masked] http://www.reutershealth.com
"Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U.