From sentto-44114-17616-1039161081-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Fri Dec 06 00:18:30 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 06 Dec 2002 00:18:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from n39.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.107]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.05) id 18KDgi-0007W7-02 for lojban-in@lojban.org; Fri, 06 Dec 2002 00:18:20 -0800 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-17616-1039161081-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.195] by n39.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 06 Dec 2002 07:51:21 -0000 X-Sender: opoudjis@optushome.com.au X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 6 Dec 2002 07:51:21 -0000 Received: (qmail 6143 invoked from network); 6 Dec 2002 07:51:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 Dec 2002 07:51:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail009.syd.optusnet.com.au) (210.49.20.137) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 Dec 2002 07:51:20 -0000 Received: from optushome.com.au (c17180.brasd1.vic.optusnet.com.au [210.49.155.40]) by mail009.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id gB67pJF13401 for ; Fri, 6 Dec 2002 18:51:19 +1100 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-Id: <810DAAAE-08EF-11D7-9FC7-003065D4EC72@optushome.com.au> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.548) From: Nick Nicholas X-Yahoo-Profile: opoudjis MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@yahoogroups.com; contact lojban-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 18:51:18 +1100 Subject: [lojban] Re: response to And Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 3120 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: opoudjis@optushome.com.au Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list And: > As I've said before, it can be hard to tell > whether the text contravenes the semantics specified in the baseline; > because it involves making guesses about what the author intended > to say. The most we can say is "We assume the author meant to > say X, but the sentence actually means Y, so if our assumptions about > the author's intentions are correct, then the text is not > baseline-compliant". Well, I should hope anyone doing baseline-compliance checking is in communication with the author! I'm in favour of giving the benefit of the doubt if the author is unavailable. This addresses baseline-compliance as defined by committee, though. And you have your text checked for compliance only if you want to. If you don't give a fig for the baseline after the freeze, then go ahead and do your thing. Until the freeze expires, though, where the baseline says the semantics should be X, and you do Y, you contravene the baseline. This will not go down well; and that's why any semantics that arises out of the BPFK has to be as restrictive as the community will allow, and not further. Formalists can do their own tighter semantic prescription apres freeze, on their own dime, without LLG sanction, and without prescriptive force over the community. It may well be a fun venture; but it's not this venture. Eh, I think we're in agreement... > I find Lojbanists' ideas about figurative lg somewhat confused. > Is the sentence "This teddy is a cribe" 100% true? Not if cribe > means 'bear'. If the sentence is 100% true, then cribe means > something other than 'bear'. That is indeed the CLL view, so I'm afraid we're stuck with it as baseline, and am reluctant to revisit it. > #Weeell, to an extent. But I tune out of jboske now, and will do so in > #the future. I need to be allowed to do so, and tune in only for what I > #deem vital. > If we could somehow simulate the Elephant and flag arguments > and counterarguments in the subject line, it might be easier to > stay tuned in. Failing that, perhaps each BF discussion topic > could be assigned a chairperson-cum-secretary, responsible > for shepherding the discussion. Oh, I want the discussion as navigable as possible. I don't want a free-form mailing list, actually, but something like a separate bulletin board for each cmavo, with understanding that early positions are flagged. If people want to get emails of the discussions, we should set up so that people subscribe to individual cmavo they care about, and get digest emails. > As for the method, I'd envisage something like: Someone makes > a proposal. P1. If nobody makes a counterproposal, P1 stands. If > somebody counterproposes P2 (P3, P4), this is debated, but in the > context of trying to arrive at a recommendation to feed in to the BF, > not of trying to investigates all the jboskological ins and outs. For > as > long as *new* arguments and counterarguments arise, the debate > continues, and revised proposals can be made and earlier proposals > retracted. There are very few issues so thorny that this would carry > on for very long. Once the flow of new arguments has dried up, > the final unretracted proposals can be voted on and submitted to > BF with some indication of the degree of consensus they command. Well. This is closer to what I wanted, certainly, though not quite it. No detailed jboskology, certainly: this is not the full jboskological description, but the core common understanding. For example, the epistemological status of lo'e may well be left out of discussion. I don't want new stuff brought up, I want the old stuff gone over. If new stuff has to be brought up, well, what am I to do, new stuff will be brought up. But we must get the lore in order first. So we're close, but people read to really take to heart that this is not jboske. I envisioned jboske discussion as background to what the BPFK does, not what the BPFK does itself. If the jboskologically minded want to take an issue to jboske they can, but I think BPFK as a body should be debating on the cmavo-specific bulletin boards, in strict structure. (This is a shift in my methodology statement, and I'm putting it up for discussion.) > #*shrug again* Perhaps. But M1 is still privileged. And if I make all > #CVVV legal, then how do you make novel experimental cmavo for ta'e? > I'm not sure quite what you mean. All CVVV are currently legal but > +experimental. I meant +exp, of course. > I propose instead classifying cmavo as follows: > I. cmavo assigned a selmaho and meaning in official documentation > II. cmavo assigned a selmaho in official documentation but not a > meaning > III. cmavo assigned a selmaho and meaning in currently unofficial > documentation > IV. cmavo not assigned a selmaho or meaning in any current > documentation We have I, III and IV currently, so the issue is II, your Usage Decides cmavo. I don't think this will fly either, but whatever, this can be discussed. > #Function words are a closed set, but 'closed' never > #means 'hermetic'. And this is revising the lexer, not necessarily the > #grammar itself. > One might go further and say "this is revising the lexer, and > necessarily > not revising the grammar itself". The Lojban design as it stands allows > for new cmavo, but not for new selmaho. I'm OK with that. Of course, we both understand by that what linguists understand by grammar, which is that the lexer (lexicon) and the parser (grammar) are distinct entities, and changes to one are separate from changes to the other. > I have often had the experience of one person asking "what does cmavo > X mean", and other people racking their heads as to what, given the > minimal info in CLL and the mahoste, it could possibly mean. Often > the process takes the form "Well, we have no idea what it could mean, > so let's invent a meaning that seems useful and is compatible with > Woldy and the mahoste". These are the cases I'd prefer to leave to > Usage's Decision. Still don't like it. Let's wait until we get to a cmavo that we really don't know how to make sense of. My guess is, people will still prefer to invent something useful, and will wait on Supplication before making up their minds. > I notice myself and many others engaging in syllable counting as a > heavily weighted criterion for stylistically evaluating a sentence. > > On its own, this makes concision merely a nice benefit, when it's > available. But as I said in other messages, the design of Lojban > tends to make logical precision more longwinded, which, in various > ways which I won't go into now, militates against Lojban's > effectiveness as a logical language. Indeed, in its 'built in > stylistics' > Lojban seems suited most of all to helsemry. *shrug* I see it is a concern, though I'm not convinced it's a massive problem, and other than limited things like moving around the occasional cmavo, I don't see that I have a mandate to do much about it now. [lexer preprocessing] > #I think this is compatible with the baseline if you squint long > enough, > #but frankly I'd rather that ruling be made fifty years from now. > I think the proposal would only work during a prescriptive phase, > albeit far in the future. Which presupposes that people will still be writing parsers for Lojban in 50 years. If it evolves naturally, I'd say they can't -- at least, not a parser for conversational Lojban. I don't see how we can prevent anyone from doing preprocessor tricks in 50 years time. I can see that we won't be doing them in the next 5. > #Without a freeze, people can do what they want with the machine > #grammar anyway; I don't see what would constitutionally prevent > #it, in that case. > There's no point in doing stuff that doesn't carry a portion of the > community along with it. Even now, with the freeze and the baseline, > people can choose to ignore it. In which case I don't see what our disagreement is. > #Some semantics shall remain underspecified and resolvable by Gricean > #salvator; accept this. > I have no problem in accepting it. I think it harms the language if > people > use sentences as if their semantics was more underspecified than it > actually > is, though. Ideologically I agree; but in practice, as you've found here yourself, there is more resistance to formalising -- and policing -- semantics than syntax. But yes, if the dictionary says, I dunno, lo'e-squinting is local (which I think it shouldn't, but that's for jboske), then I expect Lojbanists to use lo'e that way in order to be within baseline. If Lojbanists insist on the freedom to choose how they squint, then this becomes yet another Usage Decides, typically resolved by the Grice Salvator. You and I want more stuff formally decided; others want much less. This will be haggling. [Grice Salvator: see Wiki. global squinting: what you can say about lo'e merko is objectively based on the properties of all 300 million Americans. local squinting: what you can say about lo'e merko is subjectively based on the properties of the Americans you actually know. I think. But I haven't gone through jboske list yet.] == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == Nick Nicholas, Breathing | le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu opoudjis@opoudjis.net | -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/