Subject: Re: [lojban] (Technical) Problem area in v3 grammar

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 00:33:51 -0400

At 09:47 PM 06/05/2000 +0100, Richard Curnow wrote:
>On Sun, Jun 04, 2000 at 06:14:10PM -0700, Clark & Janiece Nelson wrote:
> > > Richard Curnow scripsit:
> > >
> > > > Having had another day to think about this, I think John's suggested
> > > > modification to grammar.300 provides more generality than is
> > actually
> > > > required to fix the problem.
> > >
> >
> > On the other hand, John's modification would make true the statement
> > from The Complete Lojban Language, chapter 10, section 27: "It is
> > grammatical for a termset to be placed after a tense or modal tag," thus
> > removing a contradiction from the Book.
>
>Yes indeed - I hadn't noticed that statement in the book in the context
>of this issue before. Also, in the light of John's email yesterday
>showing how my minimal scheme would introduce two distinct uses for
>nu'i, it's pretty clear that John's method is the right one to adopt.

I figure it is about time to step in and say something, because this 
problem has put us on new and uncertain ground and I have passed it to the 
LLG Board to decide the baseline policy issue pertaining to this problem.

Note that, even if it is the "right solution", there is likely to be 
considerable debate amongst the Board as to whether we should break the 
baseline to make the fix official, indeed especially since the change is so 
incidental that it sounds like people are on the point of classifying it 
like one of several other unfortunate inconsistencies in the 
Book. (Erroneous parses, on the other hand are a significantly undesirable 
situation, so nothing is cut and dried).

It is possible that the change may be left as an unofficial 
possible-solution to be tried out until the baseline period is over. Or it 
may remain in limbo until/unless we can publish a 2nd edition of the 
Book. (There may have to be consideration for the perhaps 20% of our 
purchasers who have bought copies through bookstores or otherwise 
indirectly, who we could not contact with a correction/errata on the 
necessary change to the book baseline, which some might feel an essential 
requirement for us if we change the baseline officially.)

People are welcome to continue to explore ramifications of the problem and 
its possible solutions, but the impact of this problem and its potential 
solution on the baseline policy, if any, will be dealt with separately from 
the technical issue itself.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org