From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Tue Aug 07 18:07:18 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 8 Aug 2001 01:07:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 92479 invoked from network); 8 Aug 2001 01:07:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 8 Aug 2001 01:07:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta01-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.41) by mta3 with SMTP; 8 Aug 2001 01:07:14 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.40.7]) by mta01-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20010808010711.VOZB15984.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Wed, 8 Aug 2001 02:07:11 +0100 To: Subject: loglan as logic language (was: RE: [lojban] no'a Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 02:06:18 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 In-Reply-To: From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 9309 I wrote: > >If only Loglan had remained true to its logical origins. Then > >these sorts of issues would not arise, and we'd have decent > >ways of saying all of the A & B sentences. to which, Jorge: > Was Loglan really ever logically true enough for that? and Lojbab: > If I recall correctly, pc has said that any and all use of quantifiers and > variables that are not prenexed in Loglan/Lojban have ALWAYS been a > compromise from the rigors of formal logic. Even JCB realized that > prenex-heavy logic was not humanly speakable, and the moment you start > allowing usages without prenexes you lose some of the traceability "to its > logical origins". Allegedly, Loglan in its very early stages was a speakable form of pure predicate logic, but early users found "it rattled around too much in their heads". From my experience with Lojban and especially in inventing my own loglan, I'm skeptical that that ur-Loglan would have been very effectual, i.e. that it was as user-friendly as it could have been, while remaining faithful to its logicality, and I'm pretty sure that the early users would not have developed sufficient competence to be good judges of its speakability (for nonbeginners). PC is right that unprenexed quantifiers are deviations from logic. But I believe that there is no evidence that prenex-heavy syntax is unspeakable. However, it is certain that prenex-heavy syntax is superficially dissimilar to most natlangs, and hence relatively difficult to learn (arguably), but this is exactly the attraction of Loglan; it does what natlangs don't. BTW, the Lojban prenex system is IMO more complicated than necessary, in that the grammar of prenexes could be better integrated with the rest of the grammar, which in turn could be simpler. I won't go into details, but a glance at any logical formula reveals its extreme syntactic simplicity, especially when done polishly. > Lojban DOES retain the ability to be explicit with prenexes, if you really > need to be true to logic, and we are slowly working out some of the logical > issues of non-prenexed usages. If every quantifier began a new bridi, as it should, then inter alia that would make it easier to use anaphora defined by syntactic configuration to refer to bound variables. > But while I recognize that the logical > stuff is really important to you and some others, a focus on pragmatics is > more important to others. Priorities thus remain balanced for the nonce. These pragmaticians have every right to their interest in Loglan, but I can't fathom it. Why *Loglan*, of all languages? --And.