Date: Wed, 04 Jan 1995 00:56:56 -0500
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject: Re: Goals
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Message-id: <01HLFS3TIWLE0011YF@FIPORT.FUNET.FI>
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>I think it is unrealistic
>to have awkward and prolix expressions for frequently used concepts. As
>you know, the reason some expressions are short is their high
>frequency.  So long as lojban design ignores this law of language it
>will pay the price of disuse.

I am second to none in my respect for Zipf's Law, howsoever it may apply
to such problems as this.  BUt what is NOT clear is whether these
expressions are short because they are frequently used, or vice versa, or
whether the length is particualrly important in how the particular expression
is phrased - Zipf's law is statistical in nature and every language has
idiomatic forms that are used even though there are shorter forms available.

But Lojban has been committed to ignore Zipf's law in other design features
that are FAR more important than the particular issue of more or less vague
interval offsets in tenses.  Most noteworthy of course is the singular plural
distinction - to be explicitly singular or plural requires greater length
than the corresponding form in English and most other languages (but not all).
If such distinctions are as important as their ghigh frequency would dictate
(rather than the frequency of distinction being an artifact of the language
having a mandatory singular/plural distinction), then Lojban fails your
standard in this area from the get-go.

But there are always tradeoffs in languages.  If LOjban comres to be used and
useful, it will be because it offers other advantages that far outweigh a
few extra syllables, especially in restricted domains of the language like
this one where it is relatively easy to come up with idiomatic or template
forms for expressing exactly what you want.  Where Zipf's law is more likely
to hurt Lojban is if there is some important distinction between conceopts
that cannot be expressed without many-term tanru or lujvo.

lojbab