From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Fri Mar 6 14:03:56 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Fri, 6 Mar 92 14:03 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA28527; Fri, 6 Mar 92 13:59:30 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA22265; Wed, 4 Mar 92 15:39:53 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA26048; Wed, 4 Mar 92 15:39:51 EST Message-Id: <9203042039.AA26048@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 5800; Wed, 04 Mar 92 15:38:10 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 9013; Wed, 04 Mar 92 15:36:45 EST Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1992 15:29:00 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: .imu'ibo X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO (best to put the .i on the front since mu'ibo cannot stand alone) There has long been inconsistency in Loglan and Lojban between how the tense operators and the causal operators are analyzed. The BAI operators are generalized from the causals which were a distinct category in JCB's version of the language from his modal auxiliaries that also undely BAI. In short, we havconverged several unrelated constructs into a single grammar, but the underlying semantics remains inconsistent. In general we have erased the smeantic distinction between causals and other BAIs. I believe that, even if we made the change suggested here to bring .ibabo and .imu'ibo into line with each other, there would be other inconsistencies that cannot be resolved so easily. There are other problems with tenses that are hideously complex, with very little basis in natural language to tell us which way to go, so we have chosen to go for the forms that lead to normal English glossing where arbitrary decisions are demanded. This could be considered malglico, but when you have no other basis for deciding, malglico beats unnatural. Making the suggested change is a decided change from JCB's very clear writing on this subject, and our philosophy has been that we need to have a good reason to change from a JCB design feature, usually something being internally broken. The inconsistencies that led to this question being raised can be solved by teaching method (people learning now of course are stuck with having no such organized explanation, and hence will sometimes run into these conflicts). THere would probably be significant relearning impact for Nora nad me and others who have learned the language thus far. Given the late stage of development, I am thus in need of great convincing that a chnage is justified before voting for it. lojbab