From cowan@ccil.org Sun Jun 10 18:52:41 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 11 Jun 2001 01:52:41 -0000 Received: (qmail 71670 invoked from network); 11 Jun 2001 01:52:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 11 Jun 2001 01:52:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta2 with SMTP; 11 Jun 2001 01:52:37 -0000 Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 159Gsn-0007yq-00; Sun, 10 Jun 2001 21:52:45 -0400 Subject: Re: [lojban] An approach to attitudinals In-Reply-To: <3B238593.A5B12862@flash.net> from Richard Todd at "Jun 10, 2001 09:34:59 am" To: Richard Todd Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 21:52:45 -0400 (EDT) Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan Richard Todd scripsit: > >From the brochure: > "The person who reads or hears a Lojban sentence is > never in doubt as to what words it contains or > *what roles they play* in the sentence." > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (emphasis mine) That is intended to refer to syntax. > I agree the meaning would generally be obvious. What bothers me is that > the listeners might take my sentence the wrong way. And when they do, > I've got nothing to point to to say that they've misunderstood the > sentence. They just drew their own inference from the context. Just so. There are many features of Lojban you must avoid if you mean to be semantically unambiguous: unqualified names, empty or zo'e places, tanru, attitudinals. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore --Douglas Hofstadter