From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Jan 25 22:48:27 2003 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 26 Jan 2003 06:48:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 8873 invoked from network); 26 Jan 2003 06:48:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 26 Jan 2003 06:48:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao01.cox.net) (68.1.17.244) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 26 Jan 2003 06:48:27 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20030126064824.WBSD16369.lakemtao01.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Sun, 26 Jan 2003 01:48:24 -0500 Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.0.20030126013233.035b78d0@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.0.9 Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2003 01:48:44 -0500 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] za'e "postnex" In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.0.9.0.20030124203814.034d9ec0@pop.east.cox.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 02:01 PM 1/25/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote: >Lojbab: > > At 04:46 PM 1/24/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote: > > > > It may require some conventions (grammatical scope being undefined for > > > > afterthought structures). But predefined conventions are good, > even when > > > > unofficial, in that they eliminate the need to glork from > context. (this > > > > is not to say that >I< will always approve of them) > > > > > >Unofficial conventions that conflict with official ones must not be > > >countenanced except as part of an intentionally nonstandard dialect > > > > There are no official conventions on the interpretation of metalinguistic > > bridi or parenthetical comments, on the scope of the di'u family of "text" > > references, to my knowledge. > >So the official convention is that they are metalinguistic, parenthetical >and subject to no further conventions. Metalinguistic, yes. But I don't see how that restricts anything dealing with quantification or scope. Parentheticals are unrestricted and can include metalinguistics or not; I'm not sure there is any restriction at all to what you can say in a parenthetical, and there is no convention that says that the parenthetical is of any differing import than the main discussion - it is just a way to embed a text structure into another text with minimal restriction. What it means is what it says it means. I don't have any idea why you would think that anything in Lojban isn't subject to additional conventions, should a group of speakers decide to adopt them, provided that they can communicate what they are, and provided that the text parses. >Unofficial conventions would conflict with that. They would conflict with the latter of those three, but it has never been claimed as a rule, so far as I know. > > >The official interpretation of your examples is known, and should > > >not be subverted by unofficial conventions. The place for establishing > > >unofficial conventions in in the experimental cmavo, such as zo'au > > > > Or in metalinguistic comments expressed solely in Lojban > >Well, yes: you can add a metalinguistic comment to say "this text >is not to be interpreted as Standard Lojban but instead according >to a dialect that differs in the specified ways". Perhaps you could >specify the ways by quoting an url to a webpage that defines them. Or you could use a name or fu'ivla that refers to some commonly understood set of conventions. >It doesn't really matter how you keep the dialects distijnct, so >long as you don't intercontaminate them. If you intercontaminate them, you might have to do a lot of dialect marking. But imagine that someone from your side of the pond is talking in a group with at least one someone from my side. Merely by identifying my side's representative as "American" and your side's representative as "British", we know how to interpret the different dialectal usages in a reported conversation, even when they are mixed. Of course it also might be that the American won't understand the Brit, or vice versa. %^) lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org