From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Dec 6 19:19:13 1994 Message-Id: <199412070019.AA10154@nfs2.digex.net> Date: Tue Dec 6 19:19:13 1994 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: Subject: Re: TEXT: pemci In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 06 Dec 94 03:22:32 EST.) <199412060822.AA07253@access1.digex.net> Status: RO Lojbab: > >[Indeed, in one respect I think the desire to avoid being malglico > >has gone full cirle and ended up very malglico indeed: I am thinking > >of the lack of any convenient way to make the logically and > >typologically important distinction between singular and plural > >(suhore is a bit of a mouthful) - my reading of this is that it > >results from a desire to be unEnglish, even though number distinctions > >are widespread among languages. Apologies if my guess at the history > >of this is wrong.] > > Which it is, I think. This dates from the earliest incarnations of Loglan. > A language which is culturally neutral AND metaphysically parsimonious makes > as few assumptions about what distinctions are important as possible. The > importance of singular/plural is not important in ALL situations in all > languages, likewise tense, likewise individual/mass/abstraction. [...] > The fact that su'ore is long bespeaks the fact that it is explicitly marked. I applaud making all distinctions optional, unless they are logically inescapable (e.g. le v. lo. v. lohe...). I applaud tense being optional. But we do have pu/ba/ca - 3 very short cmavo explicitly designed into the language. So yes, tense must be shown by additional markers, but not by something as circumlocutory as "suhore". Nothing is unsayable: all number distinctions made by other langs can be made in Lojban. But the number of syllables it requires exerts a bias on usage. What I think is malglico (but not carmi malglico) is not the decision not to make number distinctions obligatory, but rather the failure to design in a short & simple way to indicate plurality. ---- And