Message-Id: <199509161017.GAA29851@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Sat, 16 Sep 1995 11:00:38 +0100
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      lojb conv
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

Jorge:
> > I didn't get the impression that the speakers were that bothered about
> > pauses or glottal stops or whatever.
> I think I ignore them completely. A computer may get confused by that,
> but humans can cope well.

But it also tends to suggest - interestingly - that they're not natural
word-boundary signallers. If you look at indicators of word-boundaries
in natural languages, you find that stress, vowel harmony, obstruent
devoicing, etc. are used in the grammar, but not pauses. But at the
same time, those examples from NLs do show that there are functional
pressures on languages to come up with ways to signal word-boundaries,
so Lojban is not being unnatural in trying to do that, and is being
merely Lojbanic in trying to take it to extremes.

> >    what would you use for a backchannel, like "right,
> > yeah, mhm" etc.?
> "Yeah" is easy: {ie}. I think {go'i} is good to express agreement, too.
> To express understanding, I think {ki'anai} should work.

Now that you mention {ie}, I think {aa} is actually rather good
for this purpose. After all, one of the primary purposes of
backchanneling is to signal attentiveness to the speaker.

> > > .i LA'ezo XY. .e LA'ezo .Ybu .e LA'elu DENpabu LI'u .Enai lo DRAta
> > > NA'e CMIma LE'i BANgu be MI SANce
> > The set of languages spoken by you emit the sounds [x], [@] and [?]
> > but not the other nonmembers??? KIe.
> [ki'e=thanks; ki'a=???]

kekkatso - I'm always getting those two confused. Like {kiu} and {kui}.

> There should be a {cu} before {na'e cmima}, but you are reading a {cu}
> before {sance} that is not there. {le'i bangu be mi sance} is "the set
> of my language's sounds".

Ah! It suddenly makes sense. A lot of people these days are developing
theories of comprehension that rely very little on syntax. My Lojban
comprehension would seem to counterexemplify them.

---
And