Message-Id: <199512121832.UAA22207@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 12 Dec 1995 13:29:36 -0500
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: lojban dialectology
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 997
Lines: 20

>There have been already more than
>thirty such proposals by John Cowan and nobody has had to do any relearning
>for that.

This is incorrect. *WE* had to do the relearning.  Almsot no one else had
done much learning of the language at the point when most of those changes
were made.  SEveral of the changes DID cause relearning difficulties, htough
generally Cowan kept his propsoals confined to the simple extension
category.  But the inside/outside relative clause proposal, for one, was
a biggie, and I am not sure >I< have relearned it yet.

The moment you cannot parse an older text because of a grammar change,
relearning is necessary.  I would have to go through, but I suspect that
several of Cowan's proposals would have caused effects on old text.
The main saving grace is that the bullet-biting rafsi revision which was
even bigger as a change than almost any grammar change, makes it unlikely
that most people will turn to old texts without running them through a
translator.

lojbab