Re: Ironic Use of Attitudinals

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Lojbab (to Acli, I think):
> >Languages have no place making such rules.
>
> How can we possibly know what is or is not the limit of language.  I'm far
> from being a Chomskyan, but the boundary between biology and conscious
> choice in expression is quite uncertain.  As fir what is language - I
>  think
> it is a matter of definition.  I choose to include all means of expression
> which CAN be consciously controlled at least in part.  Lojban as a language
> design can prescribe for that entire range of expression.  Whether people
> will or will not follow that prescription is of course an individual decision.

There are many different competing and in some cases equally
valid definitions of what counts as language, or as a language.
But only by one of these definitions (a set of rules generating
sentences (sound-meaning pairings)) is a language *designable*.
Since Lojban is a designed language, it is therefore a language
in the sense that it is a set of rules generating sentences.

Now I do concede that there could be a different project, where
we come together and form some kind of community and agree to
interact with one another in certain ways, e.g. practising
free love, not raiding someone else's stash, not using metaphor,
and so on, but the product of this project would be a
community, not a language. There's nothing wrong with this
project, but it is not the same thing as Lojban.

> But Lojban is also among other things designed to test the sapir-Whorf
> Hypothesis.  If it did nothing that "language has no place doing" in terms
> of possible effect on human thought and culture, then it pretty much could
> NOt have a SWH -related effect.

Do you really mean that? I can't believe you do. If you did mean
it, it would surely imply the abandonment of the original goal
of Loglan.

> It happens that I think the attitudinals are
> an area where I think such effects may result, but that presumes that people
> use them as intended - as expressions of emotions and not manipulative
> statements primarily aimed at affecting others' emotions

True, but this experiment is more for the Jbocunt project than
the Lojban one.

[Perhaps "Jbocunt/Lobycunt" is not the most PR-friendly cmevla,
but it is the only one I can think of without grappling with xiron
to browse the gi`uste, and only once I saw it on screen did it
seem a bit iffy.]

--And