From sentto-44114-20257-1056741748-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Fri Jun 27 12:23:15 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:23:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from n19.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.74]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.12) id 19VyoG-0007SO-01 for lojban-in@lojban.org; Fri, 27 Jun 2003 12:23:01 -0700 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-20257-1056741748-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.66.94] by n19.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 27 Jun 2003 19:22:29 -0000 X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 30749 invoked from network); 27 Jun 2003 19:22:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 27 Jun 2003 19:22:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao01.cox.net) (68.1.17.244) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 27 Jun 2003 19:22:27 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org ([68.100.92.1]) by lakemtao01.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20030627192225.WUBN8337.lakemtao01.cox.net@bob.lojban.org>; Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:22:25 -0400 Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.0.20030627145934.032d9d20@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.0.9 To: leo@acadon.com,lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: <20030627143420.GA25004@skunk.reutershealth.com> 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: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:23:04 -0400 Subject: [lojban] Re: Better Communication of Ideas Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 5755 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 10:34 AM 6/27/03 -0400, John Cowan wrote: >To: >From: "Leo J. Moser" >Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2003 10:09:13 -0700 >Subject: [langdev] Better Communication of Ideas > >I have a question that begins with Lojban. ... >What are the words and related vocabulary/terminology >features of Lojban (in contrast to a natlang like English) >that are found by users to be the most useful in actual >practice. I'm talking not of the overall structure or its >logical system, more of specific terms and/or grammatical >particles that are found useful in communicating more >clearly. In Lojban, here are things I have found useful that are not easily expressed or understood in English: 1) attitudinals, and their clear distinction from the claim of a sentence. 2) the perfective tenses of ZAhO, and the perception of the structure of events that I see as a result of them (this made the learning of the perfective/imperfective distinction in Russian easy for me, when I understand that most English speakers find it hard, so this is a very useful paradigm even beyond Lojban) 3) the concept of abstraction and sumti-raising embedded into the grammar 4) the clearer distinctions between kinds of causality (something I don't think has been well explored in Lojban yet). 5) the unlimited expansibility of the language through the concept of tanru. English can probably do this by compounding, and German can do it even better, but in Lojban it is basic to the language. 6) the distinction between logical connection and mixed connection (JOI) 7) the difference between contradictory and scalar negation >In this, the comments of users is most important. What >words, particles, terms, do they "fall in love with" in >Lojban -- and find sadly lacking in all or many natlangs? I first fell in love with tanru, specifically with the clarity that allows the distinctions of "pretty little girls school" to be elucidated. I also liked the concept of audiovisual isomorphism. I discovered the intricacies of causality in reading Comrey's books early in the redesign. I made sure to preserve and expand upon Lojban's ability to work with causality, even while lacking the philosophical understanding to use the tools I put into the language (or to be sure my solution was adequate). I still don't know how useful the causals could be to someone who was comfortable with them. In redesigning the language, I next found tense in general to be an arena of interest, though the tense system then was quite different from what it is now. Early in the design, John Clifford (pc) taught me about the perfectives and the structure of events, which were added by us as an afterthought to JCB's language, but later became more clearly important to the language when Nick Nicholas started using them with comfort. The exploration of the first language users in 1989 led to the solid studies of sumti-raising, negation, and attitudinals. Attitudinals I now think offer the greatest potential to allow expression of things truly difficult in English. They parallel what on Usenet has become a small set of smileys and acronyms that mean things to different people, and expand that concept enormously. I think it is attitudinals or perhaps the structure of events that is most likely to result in what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis predicts. >What helps in everyday communication? I'll leave this to others who habituate IRC, since I don't in fact use Lojban much in everyday communication. 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 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/GSaulB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/