Message-Id: <m0jJkMP-00020zC@snark.thyrsus.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91 06:32 EST
From: lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)
To: lojban-list
Subject: retrnasmit of part of my message
Status: RO

People have commented that a chunk of the posting on science and ALs
was garbled.  I believe the really screwed up text was in point c)
which I'm repeating in its entirety.  The one person who echoed it back
to me seems to have missed over a paragraph of it (I had no obvious
glitches in transmission at this end, so I can't tell myself what was
lost).  Hope this is more understandable:


c) Another aspect of a simple system is that it is easier to perform
experiments on than a more complex system.  There are fewer variables,
and if the system is 'designed', some things that are variables are in
effect TUNABLE constants, so that you can rerun the experiment with
minor changes to explore the effects of those variables.

Experimental linguistics is a virtually unthinkable possibility with the
natural langauges.  The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (no I'm not trying to
bring it up again) is not really testable in the natural languages since
we can't control ANY variables, and we don't know what things about a
language MIGHT be determining to a culture.  It may be more testable
when you can reduce or even control the variables with a language like
Lojban.  This may seem to be lapsing over into sociology, so let me be
specific.

Lojban is a predicate language, with no nouns, verbs, or adjectives.
What are the linguistic (communicative) properties of such a system?
The answer has been partially explored through symbolic logic.  But do
people thinking linguistically in any way mimic the processes of formal
logic?  What effects would a formal-logic-based language have on those
linguistic thinking processes.  Is the resulting langauge susceptible to
the same analysis as natural language in terms of TG, GB, UG (or
whatever initials suit you %^).

Take even a few children during the critical period and teach them this
artificial language (at the same time as they learn their traditional
language).  Do they become truly bilingual?  If they are as fluently
communicative in the AL as they are in their natural language, then the
AL is a suitable linguistic model.  Then, ANY theory of language that
cannot extend to cover the features of the AL is inadequate.  You could
perform a series of experiments with ever more exotic artificial
languages (obviously you need new speakers for each test).  Sooner or
later, either the model breaks and the AL is no longer communicative, or
the theory breaks, and you've learned where to look for improvements in
the theory.

With only natural languages, you have to devise theories based on the
available data, and then go look in other natural languages for
confirmation or refutation.  But this isn't the optimal kind of
experimentation because you really cannot plan the experiment or control
the variables (the other language may have the same apparent feature
through a totally different process that you won't recognize because you
aren't looking for it.)

A language like Lojban is such an ideal test bed for experimentation,
because it is flexible; you can evolve slightly different versions of
the language very easily by simply changing some features.  Forbid a
given construct in the prescription, and do not teach it to a child.
Does the child develop that construct anyway by analogy to other
languages known, or does the child successfully adapt to whatever other
processes you've designed into the language instead of the construct.
It seems that all manner of linguistic universals could be investigated
in this way.

lojbab