Re: brain fart metaphor

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

> >> >Take the recently cited {rokci cinfo} - there is still an x2, but
> >> >whatever fills this x2 needn't be in relationship "species of" to
> >> >what fills x1; instead, they could be in relationship "in same
> >> >universe as", or something equally uninformative and general.
> >> I think that it would have to be "relevant" especially if the sumti
> >> value is filled in, or the speaker is being particularly ibtuse in
> >> using that tanru.
> >First, this is pragmatics, not semantics. Second, I'd contend that if
> >a sumti of a tertanru is left empty then it needn't be relevant.
> Because by definition all unspecified places have a "zo'e" value
> (relevant to the truth value of the bridi, but not relevant, or obvious
> to the current discussants), the x2 has semantic relevance.

What is this notion of "semantic relevance"? It's new to me, I think.

> It may be modified by the presence of the modifier side of the tanru,
> but that should not change its essnetial character - i.e. a
> category/species is still a category/species.

Why? I can't see how this follows from the basic rules about veltanru.

> >> The language has a prescription, and we can put into that prescription
> >> whatever rules we want.  The boundary between a rule of grammar and one
> >> of usage seems to me a fine one indeed, unless you talk only of the
> >> formal machine grammar as being the rules of grammar.
> >Think of the difference between the rules of chess and the conventions
> >of play (both in the sense of favoured strategies, and rules about not
> >distracting one's opponent, etc.). The rules of chess are the analogue
> >of grammar.
> But the boundary is somewhat nebulous

Hard to determine, maybe, but not therefore invalid.

> - I think the rule about touching your piece requiring it be moved,
> absent a French expression, is part of the rules of chess. Is that rule
> "grammar" or convention. I was always taught it as a rule.

It's a rule of usage. It's not part of the grammar. A chess computer
needn't be taught it.

> >> In Lojban, it is a rule defining the word pe'a that it renders the
> >> standard place struture rules inoperative in an unpredictable way.
> >Are you sure? I thought {pea} marked figurative usage.
> And that is how we define figurative usage - that the place structures
> cannot be assumed to be taken literally (they MAY be valid, but one
> cannot assume that).

I'm not clear what it means to take place structures literally or not.
Could you either give me an example or point me to the relevant
refgrammar section that explains what you have in mind?

> >{zio} is not metalinguistic. It in effect derives new lexemes. It
> >yields a "literal" meaning.
> zi'o is defined as a metalinguistic device.

Where? It's in KOhA. What is metalinguistic about it?

> I cannot argue about its effect since it is in the language over my
> vehement objection %^)  It yields a bridi with a "literal" meaning
> but I cannot envision anything other than a figurative meaning to,
> say "mamta be zi'o".

It's figurative only in relation to {mamta be da}, but since the literal
meaning of {mamta be zio} needn't be {mamta be da}, {mamta be zio}
needn't be figurative.

coo, mie and