Question about tanru, incidental relative clauses, and misleading language

[.arpis.]

Hi all,

I haven't really engaged with Lojban in years, but I recently had a few run-ins with things I like about Lojban, which prompted me with a question that I couldn't resolve myself, so I figured I'd ask.

I really like the fact that "noi" and "poi" are distinct and that there is no way to have a relative clause (or an appositive) that is ambiguous between restrictive and incidental. I then wondered if you could sneak that ambiguity into a tanru. I think the answer is yes: "lo mi xunre karce" could be either "lo mi karce poi xunre" or "lo mi karce noi xunre", right? After all, if "lo gerku zdani" is broad enough to be able to refer to a house that a dog once slept in, why not?

If that's the case, I wonder if tanru enable a particular kind of misleading language pattern I've recently been introduced to: cat couplings. They leverage the ambiguity between a restrictive and non-restrictive sense of a compound phrase to presuppose a natural concept expressed by the phrase. The article has many examples in English; I'm going to go with "stupid American" (because it's easy to translate).

"mi bebna merpre .i ku'i co'e" implies "lo ka merpre bebna cu zasti" (i.e. that American stupidity exists as a concept).

Am I correct that the ambiguity in tanru allows this kind of sneaky implication just as in English? If not, why not?

Thanks.

[Michael Turniansky]

I would agree with

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+un...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lojban/CALm%3D%3DBXRo8qPWpyK8d4f3PoJn9%3DJNtLbFuhBV%3DfFsLZxZNKzKA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Robin Lee Powell]

I think you accidentally a sentence. :D

On Sun, Feb 12, 2023 at 07:11:34AM -0500, Michael Turniansky wrote:
> I would agree with
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2023 at 8:28 PM .arpis. <rpglover...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I haven't really engaged with Lojban in years, but I recently had a few
> > run-ins with things I like about Lojban, which prompted me with a question
> > that I couldn't resolve myself, so I figured I'd ask.
> >
> > I really like the fact that "noi" and "poi" are distinct and that there is
> > no way to have a relative clause (or an appositive) that is ambiguous
> > between restrictive and incidental. I then wondered if you could sneak that
> > ambiguity into a tanru. I think the answer is yes: "lo mi xunre karce"
> > could be either "lo mi karce poi xunre" or "lo mi karce noi xunre", right?
> > After all, if "lo gerku zdani" is broad enough to be able to refer to a
> > house that a dog once slept in, why not?
> >
> > If that's the case, I wonder if tanru enable a particular kind of
> > misleading language pattern I've recently been introduced to: cat
> > couplings

> > <https://everythingstudies.com/2021/07/18/cat-couplings-revisited/>. They

> > leverage the ambiguity between a restrictive and non-restrictive sense of a
> > compound phrase to presuppose a natural concept expressed by the phrase.
> > The article has many examples in English; I'm going to go with "stupid
> > American" (because it's easy to translate).
> >
> > "mi bebna merpre .i ku'i co'e" implies "lo ka merpre bebna cu zasti" (i.e.
> > that American stupidity exists as a concept).
> >
> > Am I correct that the ambiguity in tanru allows this kind of sneaky
> > implication just as in English? If not, why not?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "lojban" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to lojban+un...@googlegroups.com.
> > To view this discussion on the web visit
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lojban/CALm%3D%3DBXRo8qPWpyK8d4f3PoJn9%3DJNtLbFuhBV%3DfFsLZxZNKzKA%40mail.gmail.com

> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lojban/CALm%3D%3DBXRo8qPWpyK8d4f3PoJn9%3DJNtLbFuhBV%3DfFsLZxZNKzKA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> > .

> >
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+un...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lojban/CAKOEKkThj9-nRHODKXtjYFGJ6wFYCa5PJ-y%3D1ydzNx8XTgMJtg%40mail.gmail.com.