Re: translation exercise

Oh yes, I had understood that it was "to my home" (the
locutor's home), but you're right, it could be "to his
/ her / their home".

Well in such a case, what can we do more than notice
that language has always a part of ambiguity in it,
and is a "source de malentendus" (a cause of
misunderstandings). That the locutor made the sentence
ambiguous on purpose or not (I think that here, it is
not on purpose) doesn't change the result. Of course,
the addressee could always ask for precisions and the
locutor give those precisions (like: "I meant to my
home, not yours !), so the language itself (the tool)
is not to be blamed. It's just that locutors usually
suppose a lot of things to be understood without them
having to precise those things. If they see that the
got misunderstood, well normally they correct what
they said.

So my conclusion is: in the domain of logical
conlangs, we should make the language as precise as
possible, but always allowing a possibility for
ambiguity - otherwise it would be a perpetual
nightmare for the speaker. We must have the
possibility to be extremely precise if we want to, and
to be vague if we prefer so.

Just an example: if the notion is gender is normally
("male" OR "female"), we should add the possibilities
for: "not precised" (I don't know or don't care
about), "both of them" (case of an hermaphrodite, but
also some plurals, like: "Les Françaises et les
Français" = "les Français+(gender=both)", or even
"other gender, neither male nor female, not foreseen
yet" (in prevision for the day we will meet E.T.)

--- Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> wrote:
> Philippe Caquant wrote:
> >
> > Yes, but what you describe is more pragmatic then
> > semantic. It goes beyond the bare meaning of the
> > sentence. The border between semantic and
> pragmatic is
> > of course not a very precise one. I think that "to
> > take home" doesn't mean "in order to have a drink,
> or
> > sex, or anything else", although what we know of
> human
> > society codes could suggest it. But it is possible
> to
> > take somebody home without any idea of that sort
> > underlying.
>
> But, it is still ambiguous.  Who's home?  Is it "I
> know who I want to
> take me to MY home" or "I know who I want to take me
> to THEIR home"?
> I'd assumed it was the speaker's home, but I could
> see it being the
> other's home.  The ambiguity is there with or
> without any sexual or
> other implications.

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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