Discourse Analysis & Pragmatics

[Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>]

Not that this is that constructive a comment; but I've been studying the latter
this semester, and the former last semester, and am continuously amused by
the way in which Lojban development has neglected these fields of linguistics,
and so finds itself confounded by them. The whole tense issue, for example,
is an issue of temporal deixis relativisation, snugly part of pragmatics. The
applicability of Gricean maxims to Lojban is another issue which occasionally
gets raised (thence the goat's legs debate). There is good reason for the
language designers to be reticent to prescribe something as fluid as
pragmatics, it's obvious that some leading-the-way has to be done from time
to time, and I do hope Lojbanists out there read more pragmatics texts
alongside their Quine.

(Deixis would translate as pu'e vlaja'o, wouldn't it, as opposed to
anaphorisation, pu'e vlaba'i).

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 A freshman once observed to me:         Nick Nicholas am I, of Melbourne, Oz.
 On the edge of the Rubicon,             nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo)
 men don't go fishing.                   CogSci and CompSci & wannabe Linguist.
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