Partial nonsense

Consider the sentence (or quasi-sentence):

1. The sky is blue or momeraths slithily toves oop outgrabe.

It is tempting to say that this is true, even though "momeraths slithily toves oop outgrabe" is nonsense, because no matter what we take the nonsense to say, the sentence comes out true.

But actually it's not true the case that no matter what we take the nonsense to say, the sentence comes out true.  Suppose "momeraths" means pink, "slithily" means but, "toves" means snow and "oop outgrabe" means is green.  Then (1) comes down to:

2. The sky is blue or pink but snow is green.

And that's false.  

The lesson is that if we want to assign a truth value to a piece of nonsense like (1), we need to have some idea at least of how the nonsense is at least to be parsed.  If the five nonsense words in (1) function as a sentential or adjectival phrase, and do not shift the natural interpretation of "The sky is blue" (e.g., into some metaphor on which they end up true), then (1) can be deemed true.  In the case, the five words are only partial nonsense: they have a delineated grammatical role.  If they were complete nonsense, (1) would have no truth value at all.

Just a touch of complete nonsense can spoil a sentence.

3. Pruss taught the metaphysics class in a stodgy, gimmeral manner.

You may think you can at least conclude that I taught the metaphysics class and did so stodgily.  But that's only true if "gimmeral" is partial nonsense--i.e., if you get to take it to be an adjective.  But what if "gimmeral" instead means but.  Then you don't even get to conclude that I taught the metaphysics class, since you're now told:

4. Pruss taught the metaphysics class in a stodgy, but manner.

And you really don't know if teaching a class in a stodgy entails teaching it (teaching a class in a dream doesn't entail teaching a class).  And the nonsense phrase "but manner" maybe cancels the meaning altogether (maybe "but manner" is like "but that was a mere appearance").

This isn't really heading anywhere.  It's just notes towards a theory of nonsense.  I don't know if the theory will ever materialize.