From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Mar 18 11:32:58 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:32:58 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DCNDG-0004kV-BY for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:32:50 -0800 Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DCNDG-0004kO-8v for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:32:50 -0800 Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 11:32:50 -0800 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: lojban ills: implicit emphasis Message-ID: <20050318193250.GP26000@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: <44275d07f070dd249c78acf2c8fd2536@xahlee.org> <012501c52bcd$08e877f0$7800020a@PICKLEWOMAN> <20050318181122.GL26000@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <022c01c52bf9$a5613730$7800020a@PICKLEWOMAN> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <022c01c52bf9$a5613730$7800020a@PICKLEWOMAN> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 9609 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 03:32:45PM -0500, Ben Goertzel wrote: > But I can see a lot of mechanisms in Lojban where, if they were > removed, then the language would be highly difficult to use for > informal communication. True. > On the other hand, natural languages are really redundant -- you > could remove a LOT of mechanisms from a natural language and it > would still be practically usable, because there are so many > workarounds... Definately true. > With Lojban, clearly there are no (or hardly any) mechanisms that > could be removed and still leave the language usable..... Not true. You could drop all of the mekso cmavo, FA, and SE with only very minor restrictions resulting. In fact, (with my parser at least), you could drop BAI, which is the largest cmavo group in the language, as well. That's just off the top of our (the people on #lojban) heads. > And my guess is that there are a few mechanisms that will still be > added to Lojban in the future to make the language more usable I doubt that we'll see any new cmavo groups at this point, although it's not entirely impossible. We're trying not to change the language any more, but only to fix serious problems. > It seems like it has been a lot of work to add enough mechanisms > to Lojban to make it usable without sacrificing the spirit of the > language.. So I gather. I wasn't around for that. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/ Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!" Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/