From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Dec 20 00:20:04 1994 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs2.digex.net with SMTP id AA05372 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 20 Dec 1994 00:20:00 -0500 Message-Id: <199412200520.AA05372@nfs2.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1550; Tue, 20 Dec 94 00:11:24 EST Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 6950; Tue, 20 Dec 1994 00:11:10 -0500 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 16:13:42 +1100 Reply-To: Nick Legend Nicholas Sender: Lojban list From: Nick Legend Nicholas Subject: Re: Chief logician? To: Lojban Mailing List In-Reply-To: <199409192003.3484@krang.vis.mu.OZ.AU> from "Randall Holmes" at Sep 19, 94 10:16:24 am Status: RO Hu'tegh! nuq ja' Randall Holmes jay'? =what any individual thinks. There is a proper function for an =advisory body in the area of correct logical usage, however. My =suspicion is that the logical features of the language (either =language) would collapse under the pressure of widespread usage, and =will become closely analogous to "bad" NL usages in hard cases; the =_option_ of logical clarity will remain. Machine parseability (and =maybe the logical usages to some extent) could continue to be enforced =if a major part of the speech community consisted of computer =programs. This is a very insightful and honest judgement, and I commend you for it. =A project which both languages should consider is the mechanization of =not only the grammar of the language but of the allowed logical =transformations; this would make it possible for interaction with =machines to enforce the logical usages. In the limit, the =construction of a theorem prover with (possibly subset) Loglan/Lojban =as the input language should be considered. My semantic analyser (in the Lojban ftp site) is a start in this direction. It is by no means much of a start (all it juggles is conjunction and some quantification), but it's there. This is actually quite a feasible project. =I won't express an opinion of JCB's linguistics research; I'm not =competent to do so. My "feel" for both languages is that they are too =similar to the native languages of the experimenters; see above. If I =were designing a language from scratch, I would have adopted VSO or =even OSV word order (Polish or reverse Polish notation :-) ), for =example. I don't think that the scientific or non-scientific nature =of JCB's method for contructing primitives, for example, is at all =relevant to the usability of the language. It is true that a casual leaf-through of a Lojban (or presumably Loglan, and certainly Klingon) grammar can give that impression, as can the less adventurous text. It is up to the individuals to explore. Exploration is not a guarantee of fluency; for example, Ivan (of blessed memory :-) ) 's translation of Smirnenski's _Tale of the stairs_ was not that experimental, but sounded more 'naturally' Lojbanic than anything I've done. On the other hand, Lojban can afford you delights when you fossick long enough. I was quite proud of my translation of 'it took my driving instructor and me four months for me to learn how to drive': .i mi joi lemi karce ctuca cu jai masti li vo fai lenu mi cilre lepu'e karce sazri . This kind of thing can be overdone. For example, it's a shibboleth of literary adroitness in Esperanto to use constructions like verbalised adjectives that are not present in European languages. But it can also be illuminating and instructive. And it happens all over the place. My translation of Hamlet III 1 was being proofread yesterday by another Klingonist (Mark Shoulson usually proofreads me, but we wanted to save time); he was quite taken aback by my (extensive) use of zero anaphora (in Lojban terms, omitting sumti). English, of course, leaves in unstressed pronouns like 'he' and 'it'; in fact, the Klingon grammar as written hints that Klingon does likewise. But if it's grammatical to leave them out, I will, and I'll see where that takes me. Wherever it takes me, it takes me away from English; and since I still need to have the language hang together as a system, where it'll take me will teach me quite a bit about how languages does hang together as a system. The jai-system in Lojban has not yet been sufficiently explored, I suspect; I expect it will, and that the results will be fascinating. -- @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nick Nicholas. Melbourne University, Aus. nsn@speech.language.unimelb.edu.au --- "Some of the English might say that the Irish orthography is very Irish. Personally, I have a lot of respect for a people who can create something so grotesque." -- Andrew Rosta , <9307262008.AA95951@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>