From hombre!uunet!aurs01!jack Sun Sep 30 23:44:39 1990 Return-Path: Received: by marob.masa.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.1) id ; Sun, 30 Sep 90 23:44 EDT Received: by hombre.MASA.COM (smail2.5) id AA03235; 30 Sep 90 23:44:46 EDT (Sun) Received: from aurs01.UUCP by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with UUCP id AA08174; Sun, 30 Sep 90 16:30:22 -0400 Received: by aurs01. (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA07299; Sun, 30 Sep 90 10:39:29 EDT Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 10:39:29 EDT From: uunet!aurs01!jack (Jack Waugh) Message-Id: <9009301439.AA07299@aurs01.> To: marob.masa.com!cowan Subject: Grammar Status: RO I don't recall that we have met, although we might have at a Logfest. My name is Jack Waugh. I have been interested in constructed predicate-based language for human speech since reading L1 in 1976. I happened to move to the DC area and so fell in with Bob Lechevalier, for good or ill. Bob requested that I repeat to you a couple of remarks I mailed him about the grammar of Lojban. His reply follows, then my original. I would be interested in seeing a copy of that two-page BNF Bob says you wrote. To: aurs01!jack Subject: Re: uunet!cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab Date: 29 Sep 90 18:00:08 EDT (Sat) From: uunet!cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab Message-Id: <9009291800.AA28076@snark.thyrsus.com> I'll have to think about [your] mathematical analogy, and not at long- distance rates. I suggest bringing John Cowan into the discussion too, since he can probably comment more intelligently at that level. Send a copy of your last to cowan@marob.masa.com John has inceidentally been able to reduce the machine grammar to 2 pages of BNF. The language really isn't that complicated, though I understand that you would like it simpler. I think that what we have though will support a variety of linguistic research efforts, not just S-W, and we may gain some respect in academia. We recently got about a month's worth of respectful hearing and discussion on sci.lang, with surprising support from the linguists who were not dedicated Chomskyians. --lojbab >From jack Thu Sep 27 10:52:40 1990 To: uunet!cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab Subject: uunet!cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab [ . . . ] I haven't had time to read the explanation of the machine grammar. Maybe it will solve the concern I have about the readability of the grammar. It is a bit disappointing, although expected, that you are announcing the baselining of the grammar in its current state. I think it should have undergone a simplification pass. I think I oppose the "let a thousand flowers bloom" philosophy. Every learner of the language has to know all the little words in order to parse arbitrary grammatical utterances. Therefore, complexity in the grammar is very expensive in learning time. Predicate language is not supposed to be a word-for-word translation of a natural lanugage. It started out radically different. I suspect some of the grammatical complications that have crept in will let speakers continue in the grammatical viewpoint of natural languages and thus have less tendency to adopt the predicate viewpoint and think about what they really mean to say. Of course, I have no place from which to stand and complain, since I have not given time to the grammar myself. If you want to debate with me about grammar (which I suppose you don't, and I am not asking you to, but if you do), we need more precisely-defined terms. Let grammar-1 mean the mathematical function that maps from utterances to parses (or to rejections as ungrammatical), independently of how that function might be expressed or prescribed. Then if A and B stand for grammar-1s and U is a putative utterance, if for all U A(U) = B(U) then A = B. Let a grammar-2 (you might know better terms than grammar-1 and grammar-2) be a pair (E, L) such that E is an expression in some mathematical notation and L (for "language") is the meaning of the notation used in E, such that L(E) is a grammar-1. Let a grammer-3 be the expression E of a grammar-2 (E, L). Then the official YACC grammar of Lojban is a grammar-3 (and L is YACC plus the preprocessor, in essence). A goal often expressed for a grammar-3 of a version of Loglan is that it be "unambiguous". Hidden behind this is some kind of constraint or criterion on L, since L could always be constructed so that E couldn't be ambiguous. [end]