From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Nov 13 18:27:26 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:27:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gjo0y-0007KO-Ap for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:27:08 -0800 Received: from eastrmmtao02.cox.net ([68.230.240.37]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1Gjo0t-0007KF-2N for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:27:08 -0800 Received: from eastrmimpo01.cox.net ([68.1.16.119]) by eastrmmtao02.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.06.03 201-2131-130-104-20060516) with ESMTP id <20061114022706.CKPA28530.eastrmmtao02.cox.net@eastrmimpo01.cox.net> for ; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:27:06 -0500 Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([72.192.234.183]) by eastrmimpo01.cox.net with bizsmtp id mSSK1V00z3y5FKc0000000; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:26:22 -0500 Message-ID: <45592973.2000505@lojban.org> Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:26:59 -0500 From: Bob LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: "la" rule References: <325816428.20061113190842@mail.ru> <20061113171203.GD24729@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <4558B5C3.9020006@kli.org> <87d57rxf3v.fsf@gmail.com> <4558E2A1.9010907@lojban.org> <4558F43D.4070601@kli.org> <45591BFC.7080808@lojban.org> <45591FC7.9010401@kli.org> In-Reply-To: <45591FC7.9010401@kli.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 13147 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 Mark E. Shoulson wrote: >> The la rule isn't required with standard (spaces included) >> orthography, and without a speaking community. When we have a skilled >> speaking community, we can find out whether la in names in the spoken >> language causes problems for humans - after all, humans can parse >> English and other human languages successfully, and they aren't >> audiovisually isomorphic. > > Then why are we bothering in the first place? I thought there was a > reason we wanted audiovisual isomorphism for Lojban. Because it was a fundamental design requirement for Loglan. Such fundamentals were simply not open for questioning when I redesigned the language. And later because audio-visual isomorphism was supposed to make the language easier for machine speech recognition. But not because it was a necessary principle for a human-understandable language, because obviously it isn't. > If that isn't a > requirement, then we can drop a lot of other confusing stuff from the > grammar too. > > Or just stick with English. People can parse that too. Correct. > It's like I said, pick your disaster. Is audio-visual isomorphism an > important part of Lojban? Important enough to keep around? Is losing > it worth keeping pauseless LA? Apparently it is, to you. If that's the > general feeling, fine. But do recognize what it is you're doing. What we are all doing is trying to guess what sorts of errors people will learn *not* to make more easily, when in fact human listeners don't typically notice the errors when speakers make them. This is true of mandatory pauses as well as "la". We can't quantify which is the more common error, because the mandatory pause doesn't affect the written language, and fluent Lojban speakers/listeners who are capable of catching pause errors while trying to understand the content probably don't yet exist. But the pause solution would affect ALL Lojban sentences with names in them, whereas a "la" or "doi" error only affects certain names. Meanwhile, it is a change to the baselined language, and I am not especially interested in considering changes to the baseline except as needed to get the byfy work done. A change here would seem not to invalidate any prior Lojban - it might change how people lojbanize their names, but it doesn't make any particular text wrong. It thus is something that can be changed by Lojban speakers in the post-baseline world with no impact. No decision is needed now. And at that point, I might not be so strongly opposed to a change. lojbab To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.