From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed Jun 21 23:26:44 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3505 ; Wed, 21 Jun 95 23:26:43 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Wed, 21 Jun 95 07:46:15 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa19088; 21 Jun 95 8:45 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5621; Wed, 21 Jun 95 03:43:14 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2960; Wed, 21 Jun 1995 03:42:25 -0400 Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 03:43:10 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: stability of the language X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Iain Alexander Message-ID: <9506210845.aa19088@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R >I don't know about that. I know from now that I won't like some things >that will very likely appear in the dictionary, e.g if you say that >{tcesau} means "ancient" instead of "intimate". Everybody will hate >some parts of the dictionary, and the parts that everybody agrees to >hate will remain only in the dictionary and never be used. In the case >of Lojban, what probably will tend to remain more "standard" is the >grammar, but the meanings of gismu and its places probably will shift >somewhat once people start learning them and not looking them up. At some point when we are fully out of the precription business. I or some other lexicographer can come along and look at actual usage, and say "hmm, no one ever seems to have used the x3 place of broda". They can then look at the corpus of broda usages, and see if there was no implied place for all such usages. If the weight of evidence is strong enough, the lexicographer might indeed decide to drop the x3 place from the dictionary. Given that word meanings don't generally change overnight, i don't expect these kinds of decisions to be made in the 2nd edition of a Lojban dictionary. But there WILL come a time (we hope and assume) that usage starts telling us what the language is rather than analysis. lojbab