older reply to Ashley - not sure I posted this

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>From: Ashley Yakeley <AshleyB@HALCYON.COM>
>Subject:      Irony: Necessity of Non-Verbal Communication with Lojban
>At 1997-11-14 10:12, Logical Language Group wrote:
>>>I agree that Lojban should be capable of expressing anything otherwise
>>>non-verbal (though it is difficult to use only Lojban to point to
>>>something)
>>
>>The imaginary journey tense system helps to some extent here.
>
>But if I have a thousand identical objects in a big heap, and I wish to
>refer to a particular one with {ti}, typically my only practical choice
>is to physically point to it -- a long string of VA and FAhA cmavo isn't
>going to cut it.

So you ellipsize what is impractical to specify.  But if you are talking
to a blind person or a computer, then physically pointing is not useful,
so thus you will have to me more specific than "ti".  The use of "ti"
with pointing is thus a rule of pragmatics, and it certainly can be
prescribed or value-weighted in a discussion of such pragmatics.

>Now this is non-verbal communication so presumably not itself Lojban.

It is part of the pragmatic constraints on how Lojban is used and hence
in one sense is part of Lojban.

>Subject:      Irony and Cultural Neutrality
>At 1997-11-14 10:12, Logical Language Group wrote:
>>And part of defining a language includes at least a little bit of defining
>>the culture.  In our case, I try to minimize this, but for one example, I
>>go out of my way to derogate cultural artifacts of English because Lojban
>>is currently dominated by native English speakers, and it is desirable that
>>Lojban develop  as culturally independent of native English culture as
>>possible, to meet its goals of cultural neutrality.
>
>So you accept that this is a cultural matter? 'Cultural artifact of
>English' does not well characterise irony, since many (most? all?) other
>cultures make ironic use of their languages.

But do they make the same ironic usages?  Is irony in one language
always translatable to irony when expressng the same thing in another
language?  I doubt it.

>In any case, this is not a good approach to cultural neutrality.

Depends on what you mean by that concept, and in turn depends on the
goal for which "cultural neutrality" is included.

>A better approach might come from the notion that cultural tendencies in
>language come largely from its constraints or impediments to expression,
>and that a language should therefore avoid such impediments as much as
>possible.

Certainly a part of the Lojbanic philsophy.  BUT we do have some places
in the language where we intentionally put constraints that are not
known to exist in any natural language (e.g. in the realm of logical
expression aand transformation - see the post by John Clifford (pc) a
couple days ago)

>I certainly feel constrained by prohibitions on irony, since occasional
>irony is part of my culture.

No prohibition on irony - only on unmarked irony.  Unmarked
object-raising is also part of your culture too, since English has no
way to mark object raising.  But you are constrained in Lojban
nonetheless if you wish to be understood.

----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";
    Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.