From lojbab@lojban.org Wed Feb 16 06:55:14 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 23152 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2005 14:55:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 16 Feb 2005 14:55:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakermmtao03.cox.net) (68.230.240.36) by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 16 Feb 2005 14:55:13 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] (really [24.250.99.39]) by lakermmtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.6.01.04.00 201-2131-117-20041022) with ESMTP id <20050216145448.TVHH4448.lakermmtao03.cox.net@[127.0.0.1]>; Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:54:48 -0500 Message-ID: <42135F0D.2040307@lojban.org> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 09:56:13 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.8 (Windows/20040913) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com References: <20050215183537.53944.qmail@web81309.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20050215183537.53944.qmail@web81309.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 68.230.240.36 From: Bob LeChevalier Reply-To: lojbab@lojban.org Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Oldbie Question from private mail. X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23846 John E Clifford wrote: >As one of the people who think that the basic >comparative form of the "adjectival" brivla is >one of the better features of Loglan (and >dropping it one of the flaws of Lojban), let me >add some notes here. > >1. The decision to set up adjectives this way in >Loglan was based on studies of the _linguistic_ >behavior of such words, how best to account for >that behavior at a fundamental level. Thus, much >of the stuff about theories in physics or >psychology or art were irrelevant (as they should >have been) to the basic concepts -- though they >play roles in related notions like "color" and >"weight" and the like. > > But Loglan/Lojban has no "adjectives". So as a Nora puts it, if linguistically we have to make blanu comparative, we also have to make jubme comparative. There is nothing more adjectival about blanu than jubme. >2. The theory involved was primarily about >attributive usage ("blue dog"), secondarily about >predicative ("dog is blue") and hardly at all >about more abstract usage ("That color is blue"), >though that is ultimately accounted for as well. > In other words, it wasn't even designed as a predicate, but only for use in tanru where the place structure seldom matters because almost no one uses be/bei to specify modifiers. The only other words that are brivla and were expected to be rarely used as selbri were the metric prefixes. The culture words initially leaned toward being attributive as well, but we had to choose a place structure that would work as a standalone selbri. The same is true for the color words. >"Scientific" color theories (for example) is >primarily about the last sort and is thus remote >from primary uses of color words. > > You never gave this impression, since you as editor of TL allowed a huge chunk of the first year of public discussion of Loglan to be esoteric discussions of scientific and other aspects of color %^) >3. Within the primary use of color terms, the >main problem in Loglan was always "What goes in >the unfilled second place?" The general answer >was (and is) that unfilled places are treated as >particularly quantified variables, but that >clearly does not work for adjectives of this >sort, since anything (well, just about) is bluer >than something and, thus, blue. > Precisely. Which is why we had to throw out the comparative form, or change the fundamental nature of Lojban ellipsis, introducing exceptions (horrors!) or dividing brivla into arbitrary semantic categories (also horrors!) > But, of course, >that was not the convention for adjectives, >though people frequently forgot -- or liked to >argue for the confusion it shed. In attributive >position, {blanu broda}, what was needed was a >broda blue than the normal (typical,...) broda -- >which might not be very blue at all or might be >very blue indeed, depending. In predicative >position, the missing place was just again the >norm for whatever sort of thing the subject was >(though this could be open to a variety of >interpretations even if the species were >specified in naming the subject). > > Unfortunately, the emergence of a paragon theory of semantics argued against that. The comparison is not "more X than a standard" but "more like the paragon X than some arbitrary allowed amount of difference". >5. At some point in Loglan days, JCB came up >with the "for a" locution (it may have been in >the original studies -- I have lost the >references on them) to make the case clearer: a >blue dog is a dog that is blue for a dog, not >simply a dog that is (in some absolute sense) >blue. Indeed, if we went by the scientific >stuff, a blue dog probably wouldn't be blue at >all, being nearer to several other standard chips >(or whatever test) than to blue. But, as dogs go >(they not ever getting very close to standard >blues, after all) it is blue. > > But that format only works for attributive concepts. Otherwise we have to deal with le prenu cu jubme being plausible meaning That person is tablish for a person. lojbab