Re: Unambiguous languages (was: EU allumettes)
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, May 4, 2004, 11:40 |
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Ray Brown scripsit:
> >Politically, of course. But not linguistically. I think it is
> >instructive to realize that a language that has the expressive
> >capabilities of a natlang but that is unambiguous is
> >linguistically achievable.
>
> Doesn't lojban attempt to achieve this?
Not altogether. Lojban attempts to eliminate phonological and syntactic
sources of ambiguity: no perfect puns, no "Time flies like an arrow"
sentences. There are several sources of ambiguity remaining in
compositional semantics; in addition, names are ambiguous (or polysemous)
and although we aim at lexical vagueness rather than ambiguity, the
border is not always easy to determine.
The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity.
--
"May the hair on your toes never fall out!" John Cowan
--Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo) jcowan@reutershealth.com
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