From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:08 2010 Reply-To: Jorge Llambias Sender: Lojban list Date: Tue Dec 12 19:36:26 1995 From: Jorge Llambias Subject: Re: TECH: PROPOSED GRAMMAR CHANGE X6: Simplification of compound tenses X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu, jorge@minerva.phyast.pitt.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Tue Dec 12 19:36:26 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: > No it was at LogFest that we switched and made the refgrammar highest > priority. There is a written record, so it should be easy to check. I was convinced that the final decision had been the opposite, but now you make me doubt. But it doesn't really matter. I'm all in favour of publishing the grammar first. > The problem is that there have been all manner of chnages and extensions > proposed over the last couple of years - indeed, Lojban List is largely > dominated by discussions of proposed changes. That's not my impression at all. I would say that it is dominated by discussion about "how to say it", and "what does this mean". Very few new cmavo have been proposed, and even those are ususally in an already existing selmaho, so that there is no grammar change involved. > We can imagine the impression > this gives outsiders, when all we can tyalk about is what changes we are > thinking about. This is a matter of public relations. None of the changes that occured or were seriously proposed in the last three years (which is the time I've known Lojban for) has or would have had much effect on Lojban as used. If people are really not learning because of the impression of instability then they are making a mistake. I'm not sure that that is the reason, though. I don't remember anyone posting to the list saying that they are waiting for the baseline to start learning. Anyone who thinks that learning will become easier with a baseline is mistaken, in my opinion. > But from my standpoint, I have to look at all the other > changes that were discussed in the last year and wonder what will happen > when you get to X75 and catch up tot he current day, if you are still working > on changes that you proposed 2 years ago. We must be reading different lists! How many grammar changes were discussed in the last year? The only one I can think of, besides those made by John, is And's {xoi}, which Stivn likes so much. I have no idea where I would get material for 75 changes. pc's cmavo proposals for scope markers were never explicited as grammar proposals because he never suggested what grammar they would have. Probably they would be in UI, so they would not constitute a grammar change. > >John has proposed thirty something similar changes, most of which were > >implemented. > And almost all of them came specifically out oif his work writing the > refgrammar. Exactly. And all of mine came from my review of his excellent work. I would have never thought of them had he not presented the grammar so clearly in his papers that the holes were made so glaring. > And they were only considered because it made it easier to write. My contention is that my changes do that too. Of course, it would require a little rewriting now, but from the point of view of the learner they would make it easier to present a simpler language. > BTW, on extension vs change. Yes we are more permissive of extensions, but > they still have been justified in general by saying thats omething COULD NOT > be said, and not that it simply had to be said in a more roundabout way. Are you sure? I would bet that most or all of John's changes were unjustifiable by that standard. What is an example of a change that allowed to say something new that could not be said in a more roundabout way? > John and I have found, and presume that others find it as well, that the > image of instability affects those of us working on learning or using the > language FAR MORE than the changes themselves. Then let's change that image. You should not react so violently to changes that have no effect whatsoever on learning. Or rather, that they make learning easier by removing unjustified exceptions. > The feeling that I have to > pay attentions to a long-winded inclonclusive debate like we spent a year > on dealing with lo/le/"any" issues. That debate was mostly of the "what does this mean" kind, not of the "let's introduce new stuff" kind. > As of yet,not one single proposal > has emerged to deal with the issues raised - at least not any formal > proposals. I am quite satisfied with the understanding I gained from the debate. And in my opinion no change is required to the grammar to deal with all the different possibilities that one may want to express. > Do I really think that no proposals will come ou tof it - no, there were > clearly one or two ideas that withstood debate. But I don't know what they > are. But the debate had to do with interpretation of what's there. What sort of proposal do you expect? > And because of that, I don't feel comfortable attempting to express > things in the language that involve an "any" concept. Yousee, *I* amd one > of those who cannot learn the language while it is changing, and I no longer > am sure what the language "is". If *I* have this problem as leader of the > community, how can I sell the language to others as stable. But the language is not changing. Or rather, we are gaining understanding of what is already there, but nothing is being added to the grammar. > So perhaps your changes are the most minor ones. My question is this - > when will we address the major wones that you and And have held forth on > for so long? There is no grammar change that I can think of that came out of that discussion. > How many changes will the other active users of the language have once > they get to the point where they decide to post formal proposals. Not very many, I would guess. > If I had > finsihed the dictionary and published it, and you had made these proposals > then they would have been flat-out rejected. I don't see why. Change X6, for example, requires zero rewording in the dictionary. > Luckily the refgrammar covers a slightly smaller amount of the language than > the dictionary, so new lexicon could be proposed that has no grammatical > significance. I beg to disagree. The refgrammar covers a different part of the language than the dictionary. There is a lot in it that you would have no way of working out from the dictionary. > >so that I don't have to say {co'a nana ze'a broda} instead of {co'a ze'a > >broda} > I guess I don't follow this, but if you are saying it needs "na" to be > accepted why couldn't you just use "ja'a" instead of "nana". I used {nana} because it is more ridiculous, so it makes the point better than {ja'a}. They are both two syllables long anyway. You can have as many tags attached to a selbri as long as you put some NAs in between them. I think that should not be allowed, but that would be a real change, not an extension, so I will leave it to John to propose it. (I don't remember whether he explains this "feature" in the papers.) > > My proposal > >is to tell the parser that this means what humans will think it means, > >a compound tense, and not {co'aku ze'a broda}, as the parser currently > >believes. > Except that BOTH mean "co'aku ze'aku", at kleast they used to %^). If {co'a ze'a broda} means {co'aku ze'aku broda} and {ze'a co'a broda} means {ze'aku co'aku broda}, then why does the parser read them differently? > I could perhaps test your proposal by putting in unlikely values and seeing > how much nonsense I can generate %^). Please do. You will see that you can only generate benign nonsense, of the sort of "long short stick", which makes sense given an appropriate context, and not malign nonsense of the {li pipai} sort. Jorge