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Subject: Re: [lojban] {la .alis.} book
From: Michael Everson <everson@evertype.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAO7bV+ifsxvkwJF7W9HK3QG4cuW78rn_-ATW+XuNrjSxpo24iA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 31 May 2015 15:56:08 +0100
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On 29 May 2015, at 08:00, Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is.my.name@GMAIL.COM> wrote=
:

>>> Lojban's design is not at all optimized to make life easy for its learn=
ers or speakers. Its users could adopt conventions that eschew many element=
s of its design, in order to make life easier for its users, but that requi=
res a consensus in usage and entails a de facto repudiation of those many e=
lements eschewed.
>>=20
>> Logical referents but semilogical structure? Okay.
>=20
> In what way  is it semi-logical? What is logical for you?
> Lojban is logical mostly in a sense that it is easily parsable.

I guess I thought of lu/li=E2=80=99u and sei/se=E2=80=99u like opening and =
closing parentheses and having open parentheses in the language for both of=
 those pairs but mandatory closing parentheses only for one of them doesn=
=E2=80=99t seem consistent.=20

> {sei} and bridi tails have different grammar. The selbri itself terminate=
s {sei}-clause, thus the end of {sei}-clause is 100%-predictable. When the =
selbri is encountered it's the signal that {sei}-clause just ended.

Only if you know what a selbri is (or whether or not a given word is a selb=
ri). And that means knowledge of the language, unless selbris are identifia=
ble by their syllable structure or something. If not, then external knowled=
ge must be there to identify the members of a class called selbri.

By the way as a linguist I find Lojban to be completely opaque in not using=
 words like verb or noun or adjective.=20

At the same time, the argument/predicate thing (and the sentence tree) make=
s no sense to me at all, and just reminds me of the horror of generative gr=
ammar. :-O

But, Gleki, if you want to work with me on this I think it would be fun, an=
d wouldn=E2=80=99t take so much time perhaps.=20

> > sei/se'u is regular; it just is regular according to rules less simple =
than you would prefer.
>=20
> Well, it does make it impossible to apply punctuation automatically, sinc=
e the only way that one could do so is to have a script that would parse a =
variable-lengths string following =E2=80=9Csei=E2=80=9D to find the word of=
 the selbri class. Not that the application of punctuation is a goal of Loj=
ban.
>=20
> I see,  so you want to put European-like punctuation at the end of {sei}-=
clauses. This is certainly possible. Are you planning to publish any other =
books apart from Alice?

Could do, if it is fun. :-)

> If yes, then it's a matter of several patches to existing parsers to outp=
ut such punctuation. Instead of " SEhU-clause?" we'll just have " (SEhU-cla=
use / { ' =E2=80=93 ' } ) =E2=80=9C.

So the parser can identify a selbri?

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

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