From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Nov 26 08:40:12 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id IAA21188 for ; Sun, 26 Nov 1995 08:40:07 -0500 Message-Id: <199511261340.IAA21188@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 3A24BFF0 ; Sun, 26 Nov 1995 9:30:03 -0400 Date: Sun, 26 Nov 1995 13:28:41 +0000 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: from the paper archives - pc on abstractors and tense To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: OR My criticism of {mue}/{puo}/{zahi}/{zuo} is only that the traditional system of 4 situation types has been cast in stone by privileging them with their own cmavo. The system is certainly useful descriptively, but it is underlain by a different, simpler and more revealing system - or so I think and so others think, even if people differ on the details of their preferred analysis. The sensible thing to have done here would be to have invented lujvo for {mue}/{puo}/{zahi}/{zuo}, which could be used in a complex selbri with {nu}. Given that, by the sound of things, tons of current lojban grammar was of necessity virtually singlehandedly invented by Lojbab in the late 1980s, with the support of pc and Nora and others, the overall achievement is exceedingly admirable. But, as we can tell when someone posts a proposal to lojban list nowadays, and the proposal is subjected to intense scrutiny, and usually shot down, or at least modified, some of those decisions could have been handled better. This is one of them. But a solitary person working in relative isolation is bound to make more mistakes than someone whose proposals are subjected to intense scrutiny by a cohort of Seething Rationalist Types. All of which is to say that while my admiration for lojban is tinged with more adverse attitudes, my admiration for Lojbab and his fellow workers is pure and complete. If to some extent my criticisms may be felt to be rhetorically directed at Lojbab, they are directed at him only qua defender of the feature in question, not qua its inventor. --- And