Re: small universe consequences

[bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU]

ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk said

   ...This is the crux. I don't think the grammar says you have to
   consider context. General principles of communication, not language-
   specific, say you have to consider context. ...

One of the rules of Lojban is that if you have not specified a
numbered place, you should translate the utterance as if that numbered
place contained {zo'e}, which is an unspecified value that makes the
bridi true.  (I am not sure whether you want to call this grammar rule
or something else.)  For example,

    mi klama loi zarci

is:

    mi klama       loi zarci   zo'e            zo'e            zo'e
I go/went/will go  to a market from someplace, via some route, via some means

For {zo'e} to work in communication between two people, the choice of
the unspecified value must be such as to make the bridii true in the
context.  If the value makes the bridi true in some different context,
people will consider the utterance false in the context that counts.

In addition, for the utterance to be considered true, unspecified
spatial and temporal tenses must `make sense' to the listener, that is
to say, the listener must use an appropriate default tense.

All this means that Lojban requires listeners and speakers to be
working within a context.


Incidentally, this leads one to understand the observation that many
have made regarding grammatical categories in natural languages, namely
that speakers `effortlessly' employ categories built into the grammar.

Dyirbal speakers mark entities as belonging to the `balan' category,
which includes `women, fire, and dangerous things'.  English speakers
mark entities as singular or plural and in the past, present or
future.

In so far as the entities being classified are part of the default or
context, then it will take little effort to make the classification.

Lojban is interesting in that default context is seldom expressed
continuously; in English and other natural languages, on the other
hand, certain categories of the default context are always expressed.

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725