Re: context in Lojban

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@quetzal.com>]

>English is a low context language? That sounds hard to believe.

I've heard it claimed that English is low-context and Japanese is
high-context. I don't know all the things that supposedly make that true,
but an example jumps to mind: in Japanese the verb is not conjugated
according to person, and personal pronouns are often omitted.  If you don't
believe me ask Zipf: the first and second person singular pronouns (watashi,
anata) are both three syllables long, and their plurals are five syllables!

Whereas in English you'd say "I like your parents" (mi nelci le do rirni),
in Japanese you'd say "go-ryoushin wa suki desu" (le rirni ga'inai zo'u
pluka).  If you wanted to say "I like my parents" (mi nelci le mi rirni) it
would be "chichihaha wa suki desu" (le rirni ga'i zo'u pluka).  In these
examples you don't need any more context because it's pretty invariable that
one refers to the listener's parents using an honorific and one's own
parents in a humble way, but apparently it gets pretty complicated when
people of different ranks, groups, and relationships are talking.  You have
to know what the relationship is between the speakers and the things they
are referring to, to know what the sentences mean.

(When I was in Japan I just used the pronouns like in English, and never got
up to the level where I was dealing with the subtleties of polite speech, so
anything beyond the example I gave is only second-hand understanding of what
goes on.)

(.i mi pu troci lenu cusku le smuni be le ga'u ponjo jufra bau la gliban
.iku'i lenu cusku bau la lojban cu zmadu fi leka frili .i la'edi'u mi
morjygau le mi jai mu'i tadni be la lojban. .i'o)

Anyway, I'm not quite sure I understand the point about "lo"'s specificity,
but the Elf's responses were intended on providing insight into what Santa's
listener perceived to be the context.  If there are multiple interpretations
for one or more of those dialogs, I can't see them, and I'd be interested in
having them specifically pointed out.  I admit I'm a little hazy on the
practical application of "le" and "lo".
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Chris Bogart
 cbogart@quetzal.com
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