From lojbab@lojban.org Mon Oct 23 10:29:41 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_1_0); 23 Oct 2000 17:29:39 -0000 Received: (qmail 27092 invoked from network); 23 Oct 2000 17:29:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m5.onelist.org with QMQP; 23 Oct 2000 17:29:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-2.cais.net) (205.252.14.72) by mta3 with SMTP; 23 Oct 2000 17:29:38 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (209-8-89-169.dynamic.cais.com [209.8.89.169]) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e9NHTa164702 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:29:36 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lojbab@lojban.org) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20001023132224.00bca290@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:33:24 -0400 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re^n: literalism In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 05:00 AM 10/23/2000 -0400, pycyn@aol.com wrote: > Or you can take a legitimate existing form and >twist it "robber cat" maybe, or "washing cat" or some other >vocables. And ultimately the last is the most efficient and generally >acceptable to speakers. Of course, it changes the meaning of a >word somewhat "cats" now includes some things that aren't cats, >and thus it opens the way for another bunch of words -- for otter >and weasel and ... But since a raccoon is not any kind of a cat, that is a metaphor that misleads. But a robber-mammal would work, and it presumably would have an acceptable place structure using conventional analysis (as would a cat metaphor, I will note - all the animal gismu have approximately the same place structures). Now I ask - are you claiming that robber-mammal is the same concept as "mammal" simply because it has the same final term? Or is it the same as "robber"? The argument is NOT that you cannot be metaphorical, but rather that the metaphors should preserve the place structure logic. I think there will be exceptions, but I remain unsure that they need to be common. I think we have pretty good semantic coverage with the gismu list, with most of the exceptions being concrete concepts that should be borrowings or are enough like some gismu in place structure that the place structure derivation rules can probably be followed while still being somewhat metaphorical. We still need some examples where non-literal works better than literal. 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