Return-Path: Message-Id: <9112020644.AA11877@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Mon Dec 2 05:28:50 1991 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: response to major 11/30/91 X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Dec 2 05:28:50 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Major asks: >In conlang lojbab writes: >> Lojban place structures are NOT baselined for all time. > >Does this mean that if I write: > > la brus. darxi la lojbab > >You can't tell who finaly got sick of trying to expalin their position >to the other and resorted to violence? No. It means that if you say it with the place structure now, then 100 years from now after place structures have evolved, you might interpret the meanings of the places, and indeed the nature of the relationship, as being different from what you understand today. This is the natural consequence of language evolution, and is unavoidable. The negative side of this is that, with Lojban, evolution will proceed unnaturally fast in the first few years while the language gets nailed down, and the natural overreaction to this is to try to baseline/freeze everything we think we can get away with so that what is written now is understandable by the time the textbook is finished, not to worry about 100 years. We cannot do this kind of freeze with place structures, because even my on-hold thorough analysis is not THAT accurate because there is a limit to the amount of dta I can track at one time. lojbab