Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:literalism

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 14:55:04 EDT

In a message dated 00-10-20 13:58:58 EDT, maikl writes:

<< PINJI DINJU sounds like a bathhouse. >>

Technically, I suspect a teahouse.

xod:
<<There are an infinite number of tanru, but lujvo are limited by
"reasonable" size. Also, information is lost in the tanru --> lujvo
process (lujvoization? lujvoizing?) because 1. we drop cmavo, 2. we select
one of many possible meanings. So I must disagree that tanru and lujvo
face the same issues.>>
There are an infinite number of lujvo, too, and tanru are also limited (by 
human capacity) to a"reasonable size" (in fact, probably less complex than 
reasonable lujvo, because tanru are longer, by and large). We *can* drop 
cmavo, but don't have to (and literalists don't even like to), we obviously 
select one meaning for a tanru each time we use it -- and it would be really 
bad form to select a different meaning each time we use it, especially in the 
same context. But yes, lujvo meaning gets fixed, tanru meaning -- outside of 
a context -- does not (officially). But how does that save the situation in 
a given case, which is largely what is at issue here: the meaning of the 
tanru (and of the lujvo) should be, the literalist says, a rule governed (and 
my ordering of rules at that) product of its components else it is wrong, 
bad, inaccurate, malwhatever, etc. The two cases seem exactly on a par.