Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 13:58:13 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802241858.NAA27623@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: zo djuno ce zo jetyju'o X-To: Logical Language Group X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: a8cbe3942e82f446c741c76817e84a9e X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Feb 24 14:07:27 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - Lojbab: > >This is the mabla anti-malglico attitude rife in Lojban. Just because > >English does things one way doesn't mean Lojban has to do them > >differently. > > The anti malglico attitude stems from the recognition that so much of Lojban's > design was done by English speakers, and if we can ENVISION an alternative > to English's way of expressing things, we assume that any tendency to > choose the English-like way is reflecting our bias. We are afraid that > failure to avoid such boas will lead to Lojban being merely a form of > ecncoded English which will have little use that English does not already have. > It would certainly reduce the potential for a Sapir/Whorf test (whereas > always avoiding the English formulation would not, since the bias that > results from any such decision is fairly random with regard to other languages) > > Furthermore, ther eis additional bias in that many people who are English > speakers are drawn to Lojban because of the perceived illogicallity of English. > Therefore they presume that going outside of English norms allows them to > evaluate the logicality of their expression in itself, without the tendency to > be drawn towards or away from a particular persepctive by its resemblance to > a particular English formulation. I very much agree with this explanation of the causes of anti-malglicoism. It doesn't make me find anti-malglicoism any less objectionable, of course, since to a great extent its causes seem to be born of ignorance. > >We just have two competing definitions of {djuno}. One, which is > >different from but akin to English "know", and which has been clearly > >articulated, and the other which Lojbab has been striving to > >articulate with varying degrees of success. > > > >How do we choose between them? - e.g. if we are going to use {djuno}, > >which meaning will we intend it to have? Do we just ask Lojbab to > >pronounce on the matter, and do our best to understand what his > >pronouncements mean, and just swallow and accept it if they turn out > >to be incoherent, or do we actually deliberate the issue, looking > >at the intrinsic sensicality of the candidate meanings, and their > >relationship to the meanings of other Lojban vocables? > > Well, having delinerated on the issue, we can just leave it undecided, > with the discussion on the record and clear in everyone's minds, and maybe > add in the lujvo required to distinguish the other if one is chosen > (true-knolwedge and false-knowledge, if my version is chosen; no idea if > otherwise). Actual Lojban usage will then tend to conform toone or the other > based on our perceptions of the merits of the cases. > > I think that my version is a superset of the other version, a more general > form, and we have generally preferred to make gismu the most general yet sill > meaningful forms possible. Especially if this last para gets shown to be true, then I may well end up agreeing that your version is preferable. I would, though, first like to get a decent understanding of what your version is, since sometimes when I think I have grasped it it then seems to get contradicted by other things you say. > >It's hard to cite without there being a reasonably comprehensive > >corpus. There has, though, been enough usage for one to get a sense > >of how people use certain words and grammatical features. > > There is enoughg to get a sense as to how Jorge and Goran use some words and > features. When we have 500 Jorges and Gorans and they all use the language > the same way, then I will agree that we can know how "people" usae the words > and features. Not that Goran and Jorge are not persons, but the use of the > mass term suggest that we are dealing with a large enough mass that > individual idiosyncrasies are not to be suspected when we observe a pattern. One can already, for example, observe a tendency to put the selbri in second position between x1 and x2, to avoid FA, but to use {cumki fa}. There are exceptions (e.g. Colin's selbri-last style), but these seem marked. --And.