From sentto-44114-17343-1038785204-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Sun Dec 01 15:27:25 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 01 Dec 2002 15:27:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from n18.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.73]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.05) id 18IdUZ-0008UL-01 for lojban-in@lojban.org; Sun, 01 Dec 2002 15:27:15 -0800 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-17343-1038785204-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.193] by n18.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 01 Dec 2002 23:26:44 -0000 X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 1 Dec 2002 23:26:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 70343 invoked from network); 1 Dec 2002 23:26:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 1 Dec 2002 23:26:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao03.cox.net) (68.1.17.242) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 1 Dec 2002 23:26:43 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20021201232641.DYRE2204.lakemtao03.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Sun, 1 Dec 2002 18:26:41 -0500 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20021201175116.031410b0@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 To: In-Reply-To: References: <6182E3BC-04E0-11D7-B360-003065D4EC72@optushome.com.au> From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@yahoogroups.com; contact lojban-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 18:19:26 -0500 Subject: [lojban] Re: Why we should cancel the vote or all vote NO (was RE: Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 2831 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list At 07:08 PM 12/1/02 +0000, And Rosta wrote: >My >concern about excessive resistance to officializing new cmavo is that >officializing new cmavo is the best way of short-circuiting debate >about definitions of existing cmavo. We agree. >To be concrete, I would make the following proposals, which I realize >would not currently have majority support. >(1) All monosyllabic cmavo whose usage to date falls below a fairly high >threshold should be replaced by a phonologically similar disyllabic >cmavo. There are some areas of the language (like Mex) that simply haven't seen enough usage at all to get useful statistics. If one argues that therefore nothing in Mex should ever be monosyllabic, then one is arguing that there should not be a Mex, since there is in fact no usage that demands a Mex at all. >These freed up monosyllabic cmavo, along with all other unassigned >monosyllabic should not be assigned. After enough text has been written >after this point -- a million words of good-quality writing, say -- the >corpus should be examined and monosyllabic cmavo assigned to the highest >frequency forms. (In hindsight, I think no monosyllabic cmavo should >have been assigned before a million words of quality usage, but it's >too late now for this.) >(2) As described on the wiki at "Exploiting the preparser". The idea is >that once there is enough text to generate high quality statistics, >new cmavo could be introduced that rewrite as high-frequency cmavo >sequences. If this were to happen, it would be many years hence, and >I simply think we should not at this stage constitutionally prohibit >it from ever occurring. The bottom line is that if there is any significant possibility of this happening in the future, then large numbers of people will refuse to learn Lojban, and we will never GET the usage needed to make Zipfean decisions. You have NO idea how painful the revisions to TLI Loglan were, over the years, to the TLI community. EVERY change, no matter how minor, lost people, and the major changes lost lots of people even when it made the language much better. Even today, 15 years after we last used TLI Loglan in any significant way, Nora more than I (but both of us) still occasionally pull up a TLI gismu rather than a Lojban gismu for a concept. Every change you guys make to the CLL baseline with your jboske debates (and I won't pretend any longer that your debates haven't effectively changed the baseline, which is one reason why the new policy) makes it that much more likely that I never will speak Lojban as much as I did in 1997. If the byfy result is planned to be modified, by any criteria set down like planned Zipfean adjustments, then I won't bother to learn the language. And if I won't, I'm sure a lot of others won't. > > And: Baseline > > > > I assume what you mean is, the baseline encompasses semantics as well > > as syntax. I whole-hearted agree, but I do not understand what the > > statement should concretely say to assert this, and I would have > > thought it was obvious anyway > >It's not as easy as this. It's easy to determine whether a text contains >ungrammatical sentences, but much harder to determine whether intended- >meaning matches baseline-meaning, since the gricean principles that >natural language exploits can allow such great mismatches between >baseline-meaning and communicated-meaning. I deny that the (existing) baseline encompasses semantics because the semantics has not been defined. The new baseline, to the extent that the cmavo are finally defined rather than merely listed and keyworded, MAY encompass whatever semantics is included in those definitions. We won't know if it will be easy or hard to determine matches between intended and baseline semantics until we have documented baseline semantics. > > And: Unintelligible cmavo > > > > We will go with the supplicatory model before we decide we don't know > > what a cmavo is. The current statement of the baseline does not allow > > cmavo deletion, because all cmavo are documented in CLL, one way or > > another. To erase cmavo would be a major techfix, and I am opposed to > > such ventures on principle > >In my experience, the supplicatory model doesn't really work, because >-- to put it hyperbolically -- we end up with Lojbab's half-baked >understanding or recollection of what something meant 20 years ago >in Loglan or what a gang of now-invisible and uninterrogable >Lojbanists came up with 15 years ago. Possibly. In which case the byfy should feel free to reject it. In many cases we have evidence and not merely my half-baked recollections. Including a TLI rep in the byfy discussion may also provide an independent source for "what Lojbab remembers trying to do" because in most cases, TLI is still doing it. >I agree that deleting these cmavo is quite a radical step, but it is >also a refreshingly honest one. It is not a practical one, unless you know someone who wants to buy several hundred copies of CLL that would suddenly be worthless. We made a serious commitment to NOT changing the language, and backed it with a $17,000 investment which has not yet been repaid. And while it might be honest, there also might be hundreds of potential Lojbanists that would go elsewhere, for fear that in another 5 years we might be "honest" again and throw out a bunch of stuff that they've spent time learning. > > At the very most, if noone has ever ever ever used lau, I might accept > > turning lau into say xu'e, and releasing lau. But for a one syllable > > cmavo to be necessary for something Zipfeanly, it has to be something > > so urgent and obvious, I'd have thought the heavens would be clamoring > > for it by now. In my book, xa'o and mu'ei are the only ones even close > > to this (with mu'ei endangered by sumtcita ka'e); and they're not that > > close > >You will see from what I say above that I favour deassigning monosyllabics >that are not heavily used, and reassigning them only after a LOT of >skilled usage. The whole area of alphabets and lerfu is tied up with Mex. We cannot say how useful Mex will be, but it certainly will not be useful if we make it more difficult to use. >As for disyllabics that currently clamour for monosyllabics, I personally >crave them for {du'u} above all, and also {lo'e}, {le'e} and perhaps >{ke'a} and {ce'u}. I don't crave ANY change to any cmavo that I already know and use. I want the bloody language to stop changing long enough for me and others to really learn it and BECOME skilled speakers. >Certainly I find myself using {lo'edu'u} constantly >and find it extremely irritating -- infuriating, even (given that the >language design could have reduced it to two, one or even zero syllables). Whereas "la'edi'u" was a common phrase from the earliest versions of Lojban, and no one ever suggested that it deserved a shorter form. Nor do I want one now. >Regarding the existing experimental cmavo, I suppose we could have a >poll about which, if any, we would like to make official. But I >would prefer to get rid of the notion of officialness That rejects the idea of a baseline. >and instead >simply say that the mini-dictionary fixes the meaning of the cmavo it >lists. A proper syntactic parser should not have the mahoste built >in to it, but should instead take input from a community-maintained >mahoste that can be updated with cmavo not listed in the mini-dictionary. Then write one. Meanwhile, in how many natural languages are the set of structure words really an open set? lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org 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 To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/