Re: VL-TRANS: a favorite saying
Saul Epstein 
Tue, 21 Oct 1997 13:29:55 -0500

At 12:29 PM 10/21/97 -0500, Rob wrote:

>At 10:43 AM 10/21/97 -0500, Saul wrote:
>
>>At 03:16 PM 10/20/97 -0500, Rob wrote:
><snicker-snack>
>>>One key note I think important, for effective communication we should
>>>have no points of ambiguity. It would not seem logical that the Vulcans
>>>after the reformation would embrace c'thia as a way of being and yet
>>>keep speaking a language with ambiguities.
>>
>>You are eliminating the possibility of literary art from post-Reformation
>>Vulcan culture. I think Vulcans would have a longstanding tradition of an
>>"inambiguous voice" for describing things which can be so described, and
>>that such a grammatical feature would have obtained additional importance
>>after Surak. But I cannot agree that all the other voices would have been
>>silenced.
>
>You've mentioned something like this before, and really feel sure I don't
>understand what you mean. What kind of applications of this ambiguous 
>voice did you have in mind? What kind of form would the grammer take, if
>you say use English in your examples?

"Suddenly light
 Suddenly dark -
 I am a shooting star too."

Or something originally English:

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps 
it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step 
to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

These are examples of ambiguous expressions. They don't demonstrate anything
grammatical because English doesn't distinguish between ambiguous and
inambiguous expression in its grammar. One might argue that it can't.

--
from Saul Epstein
liberty <at> uit <dot> net
www <dot> johnco <dot> cc <dot> ks <dot> us <slash> <tilde> sepstein
"Surak ow'pha:per the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pha:dzhar the's'hi surakecha'."
					-- K'dvarin Ursw~l'at