Re: A challenge

["Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>]

>Date:         Mon, 16 Dec 1996 13:15:54 GMT
>From: Don Wiggins <dwiggins%BFSEC.BT.CO.UK@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>
>
>>If I did not say it last time, the concept of two aliens using
 attitudinal-only
>>speech when the attuitudinals were defined strictly for human emotions seemed
>>incredibly and moind-bogglingly wrong.  If I were to do it with attitudinals,
>>I would include a few experimental cmavo that seemed likely to be attitudinals
>>in the string just to capture the alienness of the presumed emotion.
>
>I don't think that using the lojban. attitudinals is wrong, it is purely an
>imitation of the GalThree language using one type of lojbanic device, where in
>the English hyphenation is used.  It doesn't actually mean that the aliens
>said it.

I agree.  Indeed, the author felt that the alien's emotions were
sufficiently analogous to human emotions as to put "we're glad" into her
mouth.  They plainly feel emotion, and if we're to understand their
emotions we must put them in our own terms, using our own attitudinals.

~mark