From araizen@cs.huji.ac.il Mon Dec 02 14:52:21 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 02 Dec 2002 14:52:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from mxout2.netvision.net.il ([194.90.9.21]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 18IzQ9-0002tQ-01 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 02 Dec 2002 14:52:10 -0800 Received: from default ([62.0.148.201]) by mxout2.netvision.net.il (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 0.8 (built Jul 12 2002)) with SMTP id <0H6I00H99KULHQ@mxout2.netvision.net.il> for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:51:59 +0200 (IST) Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 00:53:37 +0200 From: Adam Raizen Subject: [lojban] Re: ka'enai (was: Re: A question on the new baseline policy) To: "lojban-list@lojban.org" Message-id: <0H6I00H9BKULHQ@mxout2.netvision.net.il> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Foxmail 4.1 [eg] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-archive-position: 2910 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: araizen@cs.huji.ac.il Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list de'i li 2002-12-01 ti'u li 20:50:00 la'o zoi. Jordan DeLong .zoi cusku di'e >"Let usage decide" refers to a time (which we are not anywhere near) >in the distant future when people can fluently speak lojban. It >does not refer to mistakes people make when learning. Usage is not >sufficient to decide anything right now, and of the usage which >exists there's barely any ka'enai---there's only a few people who >would rather change it to be correct than to just take a look at >the BNF and learn what the grammar for tenses really is (CAhA is >not just like PU, neither is ZAhO, etc). There is a bit of a difference between ka'enai and just any mistake made by a beginner. ka'enai is said by some people, knowing that it's not officially grammatical, because they think that it should be grammatical, based on analogy to other tenses. Clearly, usage should not decide based on beginners' mistakes, but a "mistake" such as ka'enai which is made intentionally by competent speakers is not going to go away even when fluency is commonplace. mu'o mi'e .adam.