From phm@A2E.DE Fri May 12 14:28:29 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 12796 invoked from network); 12 May 2000 21:28:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 12 May 2000 21:28:29 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.camelot.de) (195.30.224.3) by mta1 with SMTP; 12 May 2000 21:28:28 -0000 Received: from robin.camelot.de (uucp@robin.camelot.de [195.30.224.3]) by mail.camelot.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA92777; Fri, 12 May 2000 23:28:16 +0200 (CEST) Received: from oas.a2e.de (uucp@localhost) by robin.camelot.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with UUCP id XAA92774; Fri, 12 May 2000 23:28:15 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost by wtao97 via sendmail with esmtp id for ; Fri, 12 May 2000 20:02:27 +0000 (/etc/localtime) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #1 built 1999-Nov-8) Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 20:02:26 +0000 (/etc/localtime) X-Sender: phm@wtao97.oas.a2e.de To: Ivan A Derzhanski Cc: The Lojban List Subject: Re: [lojban] Centripetal-centrifugal, little-endian--big-endian, subsets-contents, etc. In-Reply-To: <391BCB5B.7094@math.bas.bg> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: PILCH Hartmut > Obviously all has to do with what one is most likely to want > to communicate or to leave out. We discuss recent events more > often than remote ones, so years are elided more often than days > -- otoh, seconds are not very useful on their own. No. This has to do with what the speaker thinks of first. Not with what needs to be communicated first. Speech is shaped in a field of forces between two poles: the laziness of the speaker and that of the listener. Also, speaking of elision here is wrong. When I say "I will come on the 18th", I am not eliding anything. I am just assuming that the container from which both the speaker and the listener set out is this month. Or I am perhaps just a lazy speaker. Elision is something different. It means eliding something that is mandated by syntax. In the above example no month specification is mandated by any syntax. Otherwise you would have to construe even a date like 2000-05-18 as an elision. I elided the "A.D.", didn't I? Not only that, I must have elided a string of infinite length, something like "A.D. according to the calendar system of planet earth of the solar system of galactical age .. " -phm