From fchauvet@aol.com Fri Jan 12 06:37:43 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Fchauvet@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_3_1_3); 12 Jan 2001 14:37:42 -0000 Received: (qmail 38964 invoked from network); 12 Jan 2001 14:36:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 12 Jan 2001 14:36:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r14.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.68) by mta3 with SMTP; 12 Jan 2001 15:37:39 -0000 Received: from Fchauvet@aol.com by imo-r14.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v28.35.) id a.de.ebf34fb (7878) for ; Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:36:23 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:36:22 EST Subject: Some remarks from a beginner To: lojban@egroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 110 From: fchauvet@aol.com X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 5129 I've been studying Lojban for some time now, and I *do* like its structures. However, it seems somewhat too "human" in the sense that most of its concepts do refer to everyday occidental-wise logic. Hence I have some remarks and preguntas to make. 1) The idea of "place structure" is indeed a good one. But, e.g. in Latin, most of the litterature uses case-endings to emphasize some parts of a sentence (ifyou can read Latin, see Virgil or Cicero). This is not possible in Lojban without using place permutators (suvh as "te", "ve"...). You can argue that these particles are indeed equivalent to case endings (after all, Swahili puts its flexions on the beginning of words). How can you keep a "natural" structure? I mean, "focus" first, then the other parameters? 2) The idea of a (potentially) four-dimensional referential seems nonsense to me, at least until mankind be able to time-travel. What about aspect, which is a purely timelike structure? With a 4D referential, you should have the notions of "beginning", "continuing" and "ending" in space as well as in time. Or you should treat time separately, as most human languages do. 3) I've been (pleasantly) striked by the fact that there are about 2,000 gismu. It happens that *all* human languages have about this number of root words (e.g. Japanese have 1,850 essential kanji). It seems to be true for almost every communication system, provided it can express enough concepts to convey an everyday life situation. This is not a remark, but a question : was this deliberately chosen, or is it a consequence of the "mankindness" of Lojban conceptors? 4) This *is* a criticism. I do *not* like Lojban's use (or, rather, un-use) of punctuation. Using the dot and comma as "letters" is indeed legitimate, from a phonetical point of view (Shaelian has only two punctuations, namely weak pause and strong pause). But it seems that Lojban has been designed to be spoken and heard, rather than read. When reading, signs such as semicolon, colon, interrogation, and so on, do replace the mimics or intonation of the locutor. Why not use them, even if unnecessary in spoken language? You do not read written text letter-after-letter (or I hope you do not) : you normally grasp several lines at a glance, and then mentally parse them. This is why line- or word- breaks are not a difficulty. In particular, i *do* hate this usage of ".i" to mark a strong pause. Now for purely technical questions : a) Is there a "thematic" gismu dictionary? I mean, most gismu's fit into families with the same place structure: x1 is an animal of species , x1 is made of , ... This would greatly help in learning Lojban. I started to compile one, but I do not have enough time. b) It seems that Lojban's grammar is regularly updated (although it essentially remains the same). What is the way to be kept informed about these evolutions? Thank you all, and happy new year (should be Year I of my reign, but my doctor said I am *not* paranoid) :-)