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John Cowan <jcowan@r...> wrote: > maikxlx scripsit: > > > I don't dispute your point that Lojban is quite rich in devices > > that allow a speaker to be as precise as he likes, but I also > > can't shake the belief that semantic precision was regarded as > > a low priority, at least relative to syntactic non-ambiguity > > and brevity. > > We felt it important to have the *capability* to be precise, > but important also not to require it. A major goal of Lojban, > which you don't mention in your list, is flexibility. I didn't have flexibility in the forefront of my mind when I wrote these words, but I did mention flexibility in my list (#6) and I do think a certain level is crucial for any language. Perhaps forced precision is not the way to go, but at the very least, I feel that it makes some sense to have the simplest construction give the most common meaning, while allowing positive marking for the less common meanings. Not having any statistical data at my fingertips however, I will not say anything stronger than that. Regards --- Mike