Message-Id: <199512090018.CAA08540@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 8 Dec 1995 23:55:49 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: buffer vowel
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2224
Lines: 46

Lojbab:
> >At present I think it reasonable to presume that natlangs do have clearly
> >specified rules, which is why we can speak them, especially when learnt
> >from birth. For Lojban there are no rules mapping 7 vowel phonemes to
> >vowel space, and all that constrains any arbitrary mapping is the need
> >to be understood.
> That is all you have with natlangs, except that the infant learning the
> languageis not in an equal negotiating position with the speaker as
> regards deciding on what phones are to be understood as what phonemes.

You are confusing the nature of the grammatical system with the nature
of the task of acquiring it. The latter is irrelevant to our present
discussion. We are discussing what the rules are, not how they are
learnt.

> Still.  I can understand you speaking English I presume, even though I
> am QUITE sure that your phone mappings of English phonemes are quite
> different from mine, and sone of your sounds, if coming from my mouth
> or that of another American, would be classified as different phonemes.

Again, I don't see how this is pertinent to the point I was making. I'm
sure you could understand my speech too. But so what?

> To be specific, Nora has different phonemes than I do in her variety
> of English (she distinguishes phonemically between marry/merry/Mary and
> two varieties of can  and la/law, and I do not).  Since we and you all
> speak "English" it is clear that there is no set of specified rules for
> English QED.

For the English I speak there is a set of specified rules. For the
English you speak there is a set of specified rules. Noone (who is sane)
would deny that those sets of rules are different. But at the same
time, the differences between them are sufficiently trivial for the
scholar of english to in general ignore them and suppose the myriad
englishes to be all alike.

> All that constrains English is the need to be understood as well, and in
> some college classrooms taught by non-native speakers, even that isn't
> necessarily true %^)

Each English is constrained by other factors too, of a psychological and
practical nature. But Lojban is constrained by additional design goals.
But anyway, this is not in contention.

---
And