From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Thu Nov 29 10:45:15 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 29 Nov 2001 18:45:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 51964 invoked from network); 29 Nov 2001 18:45:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 29 Nov 2001 18:45:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO simba.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.125) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 Nov 2001 18:45:15 -0000 Received: from localhost (jimc@localhost) by simba.math.ucla.edu (8.11.3/8.11.3/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with ESMTP id fATIjF401788 for ; Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:45:15 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: simba.math.ucla.edu: jimc owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 10:45:15 -0800 (PST) To: Subject: Suggestions for (no) change (was: [lojban] To clarify...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: "James F. Carter" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 12372 Not to clutter up the Lojban list with non-Lojban stuff, and not to be seen as aligning myself with a rather obnoxious troll, and not to take the word "unsatisfactory" too seriously, but I couldn't resist a reply... On Thu, 29 Nov 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 11/29/2001 6:09:42 AM Central Standard Time, > thinkit8@lycos.com writes: > > the words themselves are > > unsatisfactory (both in form, and what was chosen to be a gismu)... > Well, it would help it you did make clear just in what ways they are > unsatisfactory. that would lead almost directly to suggestion about how they > could be better done. I think you've left a change category off your list: the word formats. I'm not the first person to point out that it's kind of a crock to have separate gismu and rafsi. In -gua!spi I used C^nV^n words, with a practical maximum of 4 letters, and got pretty well separated word assignments. > This limits the possibilities for change to 1) a new choice of > languages (but the stats on language use have not changed much in the > last 10 years), Due to effort issues I limited myself to Chinese, Latin and English (avoiding Latin borrowings where possible). > 2) a different algorithm (really?) for constructing Lojban words from > those languages, The algorithm can be tweaked to maximize separation between words and to maximize the use of euphonic patterns as judged in the source languages. Totally random assignment turned out to be unacceptably ugly. > 3) a different choice of words in various languages for representing > the concepts (I suspect there is now the collective expertise to do > something useful in that respect), But again, that's a lot of work, and unlike Esperanto where there's the strong Latin influence to promote cognate formation, I've found the cognate relations in Lojban (and -gua!spi) to be relatively unuseful in learning vocabulary. > 4) choosing different concepts to begin with (maybe more > semantic primes rather than high frequency -- but complex -- words). I agree: we've never been able to sink our teeth into the idea of a semantic basis set, but it's clear that some of the gismu are a lot more "equal" than others. But if we ever got into that kind of discussion it would make today's arcana-fests pale by comparison. It's also doubleplusungood to limit the available semantic space so as to make the language less expressive, and one also can't be sure if the selected basis truly covers the desired semantic space. It would be a very bad idea to actually think of renovating the Lojban vocabulary in any of these ways, because a lot of people have invested a lot of time in learning *these* gismu and rafsi. I have my ideas for improvement, as people know, but I also have confidence in the semantic coverage of the Lojban gismu, and even if not perfect, they're really not bad at all. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)