From mark@kli.org Wed Oct 20 17:22:10 1999 X-Digest-Num: 261 Message-ID: <44114.261.1412.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: 21 Oct 1999 00:22:10 -0000 From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Re: This list is not as I expected X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1412 >Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 04:30:26 -0400 >From: Paul Dufresne > >From: Paul Dufresne > >Somehow, I am worry about if Lojban can really be used to think, in >day to day process. I guess the answer is, of course not. A language >is a communication tool, and you cannot use Lojban to write a report >to your employer, or listen to the TV, because your employer is not >speaking Lojban (most likely), and there is no Lojban TV channel, yet. > >But then, at least it should be very usable to do personal thoughts in >your mind. But somehow I have the feeling few if any does that. I won't say I do it every minute of every day, but I certainly have been known to use Lojban to re-formulate thoughts in my head to clarify what's going on. Just breaking things up into what exactly are the participants (arguments) to which relationship (predicate) and all can be a big help. An really good anecdotal answer doesn't come to mind offhand, but a slightly weaker one will do. The only reason this one is weaker is because I didn't happen to work it out myself, but rather wasn't thinking too clearly that day and wound up asking on this list, and other people supplied the answer. I had been musing about two lines in a Raffi song my son had been listening to. One said, "I don't need a lumberjack to pour my milk" (i.e. I can do that without a lumberjack; also "I don't need a radio to sing a song), and the other was "I don't need a dinosaur to eat me up" (i.e. I could really do without that happening at all). The English uses the same structure for both meanings. What's going on here? Obviously, we have {mi na nitcu loi Lumberjack loi nu pour my milk} vs. {mi na nitcu loi nu lo Dinosaur cu eat me} (Yes, I know I'm speaking macaroni; it's followable, though). This is the kind of thinking I use Lojban for, to help get at the root of concepts properly. In this respect, incidentally, I think the {le nu} construct is an underappreciated hero of Lojban. ~mark