From lojbab Sun Jun 26 02:14:22 1994 Date: Sun, 26 Jun 1994 02:14:19 -0400 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199406260614.AA18661@access1.digex.net> To: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Subject: Crosspost from comp.ai.nat-lang 2 of 2 Status: RO The following is part 2 of 2: postings about Lojban that have been on comp.ai.nat-lang in the last few days lojbab |From: holmes@diamond.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) |Subject: Re: The artificial language Loglan |Date: Sun Jun 19 14:03:04 EDT 1994 |Organization: Boise State University Math Dept. |In-reply-to: alelyuna@brahms.udel.edu's message of 19 Jun 1994 15:07:04 -0400 | |In article <2u250o$mpl@brahms.udel.edu> alelyuna@brahms.udel.edu (Robert Alelyun |as) writes: | | Randall Holmes wrote: | [snip] | >This seems like a natural venue to find people who know about it or who | >might be interested in finding out about it. | > | >Loglan is an artificial language with a YACC-parsable grammar which is | >intended to be spoken by human beings (but is (since parsable) a | >possible means for communicating with machines). Its grammar is based | >(not quite perfectly) on first-order predicate logic. My impression | >is that it _is_ potentially a member of the genus "natural language" | >(my impression is that people can and it is claimed that some have | >learned to speak it); in fact, it is relatively easy to learn | [snip] | > | >It has moderately good software support; a parser (from the level of | >phonology up to the level of sentence structure) and an on-line | >dictionary. The latter is a new product which makes life much easier. | [snip] | | Quite interesting. I remember a previous post about Lojban, and its potentia |l | for improved natural language processing. I think this points out a popular | misconception about what language is, and what makes it hard to process. | These comments also apply to "limited vocabulary" approaches, such as | restricting English to 500 words. | | My opinion is that the complexity of language comes from the enormity of the | class of things which can be _meant_, not the class of what can be said. | The class of things which can be _meant_ derives from the complexity of | culture. It sounds simple, but it is a 180 degree turn in viewpoint from the | a | priori assumption of many modern attempts at language. Meaning flows from | culture to language, not the other way around. | |See the last note. A lot can be said in Loglan/Lojban, but mostly in |vague non-logically analyzable ways as in English or other NL's; there |is no attempt to analyze meaning logically in these languages. The |logical machinery implements first-order predicate calculus and possible |some very simple set theory, but the predicate vocabulary is not |logically systematic; it is built using metaphors which are not subject |to logical transformations. | | | What would this mean for artificial languages? It means that people will wan |t | to express the same complex communications, with the nuances and the shading, | they are used to. If the means to do that is removed from traditional | carriers of this information, then other carriers will be extended to do the | duty. Once English itself (and I'm sure other modern languages) had a | limited vocabulary, and a very simple grammatical structure (thematic roles | were marked directly by word inflections, you can't get much easier to parse | than that). Descriptions were taken in the concrete, as examples of single | events placed in time, not the abstractions we are so facile with today. | | Consider a piece of language like: | | [In reference to Vikings] | "Their ships were long and narrow... On the sails were painted devices like | | the eagle or the wolf." | | This is really quite odd, a special use of language for a special purpose. | Note there is not a real ship discussed here, nor are we talking about "all" | ships in the sense of logical ALL, perhaps we might use the modern notion | of prototype to describe what this language is doing. | |Loglan actually happens to have a form of reference (a variant of the |definite article) to handle this exact kind of generalization (reference |to a "typical" object of a class). But I'm sure that other frustrating |examples could be found! | | The point is, because | people like to think this way, in terms of a concretized abstraction, the | language allows the interpretation which should be obvious to all of us. | Similar language can allow a strictly concrete interpretation, like: | | [In reference to Davis, a Viking] | "His ship was long and narrow... On the sail was painted a wolf." | | My guess is, although I haven't studied this, is that the concrete language | was first historically, and because people wanted to express themselves this | other way, they extended the concrete to abstract under certain situations | by conventional usage. | |Of course, analysis of "on his sail was painted a wolf" reveals some |logical complexity! | | Then back to Lojban, even if a simple, parsable set of supposed meanings | and rules is created, people are going to want to do the same complex | things with the language, and will simply rely upon stricter contextual | conventions; the net language processing task is equally difficult. | You've just made one step shorter-- mapping from sentence to some logical | form-- and made the truly difficult step longer-- mapping from logical | form to purpose. | |Loglan or Lojban (two closely related but different languages) do not in |fact restrict meanings; they share devices which allow the expression of |the same kinds of vague modifications available in English or other |NL's, and these will _firmly resist_ logical analysis (as opposed to |parsing)! The only advantage (and it is noticeable) which the |constructed languages have is that a genuinely logically analyzable |sentence can be identified as such; in English it is easy to come up |with sentences which look as if they have a certain logical structure |and do not have it. | | The only really successful ways so far demonstrated in simplifying NLP | involve restricting _domains_, which is actually a way to restrict possible | purposes of the language. So my guess is either Lojban will be | frustrating and inferior to real languages, or equally hard to process. | |My suspicion is that Loglan/Lojban would be usable in NLP for work on |restricted domains; the advantage they would have is that they come with |built-in parsing capability (already implemented) and, in principle, |mechanizable recognition of valid logical transformations (I'm not |talking through my hat here: I write theorem proving software, and I'm |quite certain that Loglan/Lojban are suitable languages; my problem with |them is that they are just slightly larger in their grammar than the |sort of language I would really like to work with -- precisely because |they contain grammatical arrangements for much non-logical stuff found |in NL's!) The disadvantage is that one really does have to learn a |language! Contra the last point, it might be easier to learn a small |alien language than a grammatically constrained small fragment of one's |own, for some? | |I agree with you; but Loglan does not claim to have a logical analysis |of meaning; it has logic (the usual kind) built in, along with |_non-logical_ language constructions capable of expressing nuances of |meaning but resistant to logical analysis, and for both kinds of |constructions is syntactically completely unambiguous (this is verified |mechanically using compiler construction tools!) Loglan has unambiguous |syntax, and the part of the language which is logical is capable of |mechanically supported/verified transformations. But this does not |scratch the problem of semantics!!! | | So those are two very different views-- one is to think of meaning as | flowing outward from language into the culture, the other is to think of | meaning as flowing from culture into language, that is, the language | expresses exactly those distinctions people within the culture find | relevant. | |Loglan was actually designed by a (logically competent) sociologist to |address the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, so its design does address these |kinds of issues, but I don't know much about that side that side of it; |I'm a logician and a latecomer. |-- |The opinions expressed | --Sincerely, |above are not the "official" | M. Randall Holmes |opinions of any person | Math. Dept., Boise State Univ. |or institution. | holmes@math.idbsu.edu | | | |From: helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) |Subject: Re: The artificial language Loglan |Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network |Date: Mon Jun 20 01:52:11 EDT 1994 | |In article , holmes@diamond.idbsu.edu (R |andall Holmes) writes: ||> Is anyone on this group familiar with the artificial language Loglan ||> (either Institute Loglan (the official version) or Lojban (the pirate ||> version); they are essentially the same, and I really have no animus ||> against the other flavor)? | |If you subscribe to the constructed languages mailing list |(conlang@buphy.bu.edu ) and ask you can have all of your questions about |lojban answered. The loglanites are not represented per se. | |I looked into using lojban as a basis for doing knowledge representation |in NLP, and came to the (very personal and non-universally binding) |conclusion that (for me, on my work, at the present moment) lojban |really didn't buy me anything more than simply using first-order |predicate calculus for the knowledge representation language, and lojban |had the additional drawbacks of having a more complex syntax and a wierd |vocab to memorize. | |However, its a "cool as hell" language and imho should be more widely |known. The main lessons which the NLP and AI community can (in my view) |draw from it are the following: | |1. How do you logically break the world into chunks and then assign | words to each chunk? | |2. How do those chunks combine to refer to other chunks? | |3. How much of the world is reasonable to include in the language, and | what should/must be left out? | |For me it was fascinating and instructive to see how some very bright |people tackled these tough questions and how far they got. | | |From: seth@wucs1.wustl.edu (Seth Golub) |Subject: Re: The artificial language Loglan |Date: Wed Jun 22 17:50:47 EDT 1994 |Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO | |In article , |Randall A Helzerman wrote: | |> However, its a "cool as hell" language and imho should be more |> widely known. | |I agree. I've only recently begun studying it, but it has many |features that I wish English had. | |There are a number of online resources for Lojban. | |The following is a reproduction of the Lojban contact info Web page. | | |Getting into contact with la lojbangirz |*************************************** | | | |Write or call |============= | | Bob LeChevalier | The Logical Language Group, Inc. | 2904 Beau Lane | Fairfax, VA 22031 | (703) 385-0273 | | e-mail: lojbab@access.digex.net | | o International Contact Addresses | o Lojban Mailing List | o Lojban FTP and WWW Archives Maintenance | o Registration Form | o Publications Order Form | |International Contact Addresses |=============================== | |Australia and New Zealand | Nick Nicholas, nsn@vis.mu.oz.au | |Continental Europe and the British Isles | Colin Fine, C.J.FINE@BRADFORD.AC.UK | |Scandinavian Countries and Finland | Veijo Vilva, veion@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi | | | |Mailing List - lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu |=========================================== | |An active mailing list is available on the Internet. To join, send the |message | | subscribe lojban firstname lastname | |to: | | listserv@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu | |and send mailings to all mailing list members via: | | lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu | |Compuserve members can join this list, or can contact us, by preceding |any of the above addresses with "INTERNET:". Fidonet connects with the |Internet via a variety of nodes - contact your SYSOP. | | |Maintenance of the Lojban FTP Archive |===================================== |( ra.cs.yale.edu ) |================== | | Erik Rauch, rauch@cs.yale.edu | | | |Maintenance of the Lojban WWW Archive |===================================== |( http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ ) |======================================= | | Veijo Vilva, veion@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi | |-- |Seth Golub | "..And in all of Babylonia there was |seth@cs.wustl.edu | wailing and gnashing of teeth, till the |seth@hilco.com | prophets bade the multitudes get a grip | | on themselves and shape up." - W. Allen | | | |From: delaques@gcg.com (Phillip Delaquess) |Subject: Re: The artificial language Loglan |Organization: Genetics Computer Group |Date: Fri Jun 24 18:58:00 EDT 1994 | |In article <2uabnn$no8@bigfoot.wustl.edu>, seth@wucs1.wustl.edu (Seth Golub) wri |tes... |>In article , |>Randall A Helzerman wrote: |> |>> However, its a "cool as hell" language and imho should be more |>> widely known. |> |>I agree. I've only recently begun studying it, but it has many |>features that I wish English had. | |I agree too. Lojban is a fascinating new way to look at structure and |meaning. I have been studying it ever since their WWW server was |announced. Somewhere out there is the Lojban group's account of the |split between Loglan and Lojban. I'd love to hear the other side of the |story. | |=============================================================================== |Philip Delaquess | Ecx malgranda muso, |delaques@gcg.com | Ne estas sen anuso. |------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Bonvolu skribi min Esperante. |===============================================================================