From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Wed Feb 23 08:45:01 2000
X-Digest-Num: 373
Message-ID: <44114.373.2060.959273826@eGroups.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 08:45:01 -0800 (PST)
From: "James F. Carter" <jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: baselining (was: Dr. James Cooke Brown)

On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Robert A. McIvor wrote:

> From: "Robert A. McIvor" <rmcivor@macsrule.com>
> 
> At 11:53 AM -0600 2/18/00, Steven Belknap wrote:
> >From: Steven Belknap <sbelknap@uic.edu>
> >textbook. It is important to understand that Loglan was *never*
> >baselined.
> >
> It was never intended that Loglan be baselined. Living
> languages
> change and grow constantly.

In a natural language drift is slowed down by old fogies (like us) who
rant at the teenagers for their outre' modes of speech. In a constructed
language there isn't any dead weight of conservatism and so there's always
the temptation to tinker. Lojban's baseline commitment is valuable as an
aid to recruiting, because beginners won't worry that all their efforts
will be revised to the trash can. It also makes the community live with
the language as it *is*, warts and all, and really get a feel for what does
(and doesn't) need to be changed.

I think that Loglan is also pretty stable de facto (even if not de
jure). In Lojban I expect few major changes when the baseline period
expires. The area that I think most needs to be addressed is the place
structures of primitive predicates, so automatic construction of compound
words will go more smoothly. (This is a very nice Lojban feature.)


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