Return-Path: Message-Id: <9109192031.AA01359@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Thu Sep 19 21:07:04 1991 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: dikyjvo X-To: jimc%MATH.UCLA.EDU@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , List Reader Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Thu Sep 19 21:07:04 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Did I see Jim Carter actually admit that dikyjvo may not be compatible with Lojban??????????? .uecai .ianaicai Of course, this overstates things. What I said was that we could not use dikyjvo as a design element. What is quite permissible is for you and Nick and others to use dikyjvo as a guideline/idea generator in your own lujvo building whereever you wish, just recognizing that not everyone will use the same mechanical approach and that they aren't wrong to do so. This means that you will make your dikyjvo, but then must look at the result from the point of view of a non-dikyjvo reader, and if the result still seems most likely, it is fine. If a non-dikyjvo reader might come up with a different answer, you may or may not need more thought. Of course the amount of time you have will help determine the amount of time you spend. At conversational speeds I make new lujvo semi-algorithmically (though I don;t know the algorithm) without that careful check. Of course, I'll get immediate feedback if a make a non-understandable lujvo. But in dictionary writing or written text where I go back and review what I write for misunderstandings, I can easily envision changing to a less regular construction because it fits my inner sense of 'what is right' or more importantly 'what will be understood'. But even there, I still pay attention to what I perceive the place strcuture will be for the resulting word. So, Jim, you haven;t been totally off-base, and the work doesn;t have to be 'abandoned'. It just has to be tempered with humanity rather than applied mechanically and mandatorily. I'm also wary about you use of it as an argument for changing place structures in a direction counter to that in which they were going. Still, you may have helped convince me that absolutism in declefting is as unnatural as dikyjvo, so I am far less rabid about eliminating cleft structures that make the language unwieldy. I want Lojban to still feel like a natural language. lojbab@grebyn.com