Re: Unambiguous languages (was: EU allumettes)

At 07:02 5.5.2004, Ray Brown wrote:

>Indeed, not - and humans being as we are, I think the aim to eliminate all
>lexical vagueness/ambiguity is not realizable.
I doubt that it is desirable.  I think the result would be
a sterile beast, since human progress is generally a matter
of patching the imperfect results of our predecessors.
As for framing legal texts in an unambiguous language the
thought is even scary.  There will always be borderline
cases, and what happens to the prerogative of courts and
judges to follow the spirit rather than the letter of law?

While I certainly don't believe that the historical
development of human language makes any "progress"
in whatever sense I do think that the opposing forces
of what historical linguists call "rule and analogy"
(and ambiguation and disambiguation is part of that)
is what makes language a pliable and adaptible medium
for human communication.  An unambiguous language would
not be amenable to change, and since human culture changes
it would eventually be discarded.

/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)

         Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                             (Tacitus)

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