From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Jul 28 02:07:44 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MVieu-00043Q-EZ for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:44 -0700 Received: from an-out-0708.google.com ([209.85.132.244]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MViep-00042o-16 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:44 -0700 Received: by an-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id d40so5204878and.1 for ; Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:37 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=Ai5ayCumLPuhgmms4NBEtSb9rVImd+EdWNpGx8AUqgw=; b=Z2M6mO1pnDKr9g1c7dpscFyTsWjrrC/9M2VMeuvp5asn6Lu72cpZiajAZooqCRVqL7 IaszD1Gz5/IRnRDndNkyZof+fUYWhCEaQh0OQ5mjH60VVh4OUeEvr2Bp4kdv544EfljT a1/ebUwcdAze6kavbSNnSDM6sozj6+XgIlAj8= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=FEeqw07NK6fZ/N1k0murz1u/nJnQtPgQOOVKhsIcBUDgf5/4qz3eXrQSiQqyYi6OBJ vFkBzqlyAFE10o5xuRtt5t5arqkrBEuGUz1eIwJq2RIOQ/oKZYcgS32Re5Vj+PoVcB2A V6TJFJ4q6r/zu66OOownIuGSxBwQ0SgmkvtPo= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.231.18.73 with SMTP id v9mr2423539iba.22.1248772057692; Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:07:37 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <44347.77723.qm@web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <126025.43169.qm@web50408.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <228475.79712.qm@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A6B38D4.80606@lojban.org> <330956.40087.qm@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <425e4ac20907252227o3a6a1e28taa846e5983e4a6bc@mail.gmail.com> <44347.77723.qm@web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:07:37 -0400 Message-ID: <425e4ac20907280207n434a2663ta5cafad58b7f7bbe@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban] Re: Philosophical differences. From: Stela Selckiku To: lojban-list@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-archive-position: 15816 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: selckiku@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list mi'e la stela selckiku On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 3:59 PM, John E Clifford wrote: > li'o > Well, if I remember the rules rightly (doubtful in the best of times), no lujvo can > have the form of a gismu and a fu'ivla that did would be very rare indeed, so > how are these words Lojban? Well I personally discourage the invention of xargismu, though like many people these days I'm partial towards "kibro" (cyber). But it shows the difference between a prescriptive and a descriptive perspective on modern Lojban, since in actual fact xargismu are some of the most commonly invented words. Incidentally I think that particular sickness could be cured by having more fu'ivla in common use, so that newbies can follow them and find fresh healthy sparsely-populated fu'ivla spaces. For instance, I didn't know until a few years ago that the .VCCV fu'ivla space existed. If we had a few common .VCCV words everyone knew (one of my favorites is ".otpi", a bottle shaped object which may or may not have a lid) then newbies would be attracted by that less taboo glittering gem. It's a smallish space so soon enough it would be crowded too, but meanwhile our language would be that much the richer for it. li'o > Well, except that most languages  do not have an official form and no > natural one has such a harsh taskmaster as an infallible parser (if your > sentence does not parse, you are wrong. quite unlike the situation in > natural languages, where you may be introducing a new usage). li'o Again that makes sense in theory, but I'm not sure it matches the real situation. What we actually have is two respected parsers, camxes and jbofi'e. There are various (arguably obscure) situations in which one or the other of them are broadly considered to be flat wrong, and I believe there are situations in which both of them are wrong. The consensus dialect is entirely parseable, but there is to my knowledge no parser that fully captures it, apparently on account of laziness. (There's also Xorxesese, which is even more easily parsed, but doesn't have a parser for political reasons.) The parsers are both interesting in theory and useful in practice, but I think there's a deeper value to that abstract language itself which we all understand using our own wetware (brain) parsers. Lojban has a special kind of grammar, which can (at least with years of practice!) be fully used and deeply understood by an unaided human mind. Computers will soon be able to parse even ambiguous grammars, but there will continue to be something unique about Lojban's structure. mu'o 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.