From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Nov 29 23:19:52 1994 Message-Id: <199411300419.AA12679@nfs1.digex.net> Date: Tue Nov 29 23:19:52 1994 From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: veridicality in grammar In-Reply-To: <199411300130.UAA23537@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> (message from David Bowen on Tue, 29 Nov 1994 14:53:44 -0600) Status: RO David Bowen said: My definition is that "well-formed" is equivalent to "is syntactically correct". In other words, if I can build a parse tree for it using the current Lojban grammar it's well-formed. I would categorize errors in the usage of "lo" and "le" as semantic errors. Yes. That is what I thought until Halloween. Then I wondered how a Lojban parent would respond to little George reporting, `I saw a real ghost!' Doubtless, at Halloween, {mi pu ze'i lo ru'izukte} is OK, but what about other times? A parent would make the correction ... but the correction is to grammar! It is the same as correcting `I saw three ghost!'. It is grammatically incorrect to put a value into the wrong grammatical category. In English it is grammatically incorrect to put a plural value into a singular grammatical category. Among the Dyirbal, it is correct to put cigarettes and edible fruit into the same grammatical category and incorrect to put them into the same category as meat and fire, which are in two other categories. In Lojban, it is grammatically incorrect to put a `for real' value into a `I designate as' category. You are right, this Lojban parse goes against the way a grammar works that is based on parse trees. I run the parser program on both utterances, and both are OK. Nonetheless, a fluent speaker should *feel* that the grammar are wrong, just as you *feel* the grammar error I just made. As far as I can see, this means either that Lojban has a grammar that cannot succeed in practice (meaning that fluent Lojban speakers will not be able to distinguish {le} and {lo} by `feel' as I am hypothesizing), or it has a grammar that has more characteristics than a contemporary computer programming language. I suspect the latter, but rather surprised and saddened by it, since I did not expect it, and was hoping for language with a `complete' definition. Robert J. Chassell bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu 25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA (413) 298-4725