From lojban-out@lojban.org Fri Mar 18 13:51:53 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 70345 invoked from network); 18 Mar 2005 21:51:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.167) by m29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 18 Mar 2005 21:51:53 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 18 Mar 2005 21:51:53 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DCPNo-0007Sa-Dr for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:52 -0800 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.44) id 1DCPNJ-0007S1-2I; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:24 -0800 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DCPN6-0007Rp-NZ for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:08 -0800 Received: from web81310.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.85]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.44) id 1DCPN3-0007JX-8T for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:51:08 -0800 Message-ID: <20050318215033.38424.qmail@web81310.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [65.69.48.37] by web81310.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:50:33 PST Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:50:33 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: 6667 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 9611 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0 X-eGroups-From: John E Clifford From: John E Clifford Reply-To: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Subject: [lojban] Re: lojban ills: implicit emphasis X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23973 It is also important to note that Lojban is constantly being compared to a rigorous formal grammar while natural languages are not. Given any serious proposal for the formal grammar of a natural language, much of the "freedom" would disappear as ungrammatical (on that grammar; we could construct another that made the piece just lost grammatical, but that would probably mean the loss of something else). Even with what is left, the natural language would be ambiguous in countless ways (assuming we do not put too many restrictions into the grammar) and, as such, a less than ideal device for conveying information. Too be sure, many of these ambiguities don't puzzle anyone; they are disambiguated by context and a number of other factors that are not readily encodable. In a similar way, much ungrammatical Lojban is also perfectly (well,as good as natural languages) intelligible even if a machine can't quite figure it out (people are always leaving out {cu} and elidable terminators and even {be} but are understood at least as well as someone who fails to mark agreement or misuses subordinating conjunctions in English). When we get down to devices that a natural language has in correct usage, it is hard to see what Lojban lacks (the process of looking for them has been going on for fifty years now, so one expects the job is pretty near finished, especially considering the attitude of many of the searchers over that time). English (etc.) which had to be understood by a machine (which is something that underlies Lojban) would be at least as lacking as Lojban (if Lojban is) -- and probably more so, since Lojban has grown up with that narrow-mineded interlocuor in mind. But, that having been said, when you find a cse that Lojban can't do with something like English, say, simplicity (and that is grammatical in English), point it out and some clever soul will either tell us how to do it at the level in existing Lojban or have figured out a minimal patch that flows smoothly with the rest of the language (prediction based on a long history of its happening). --- Robin Lee Powell wrote: > On Fri, Mar 18, 2005 at 03:32:45PM -0500, Ben > Goertzel wrote: > > But I can see a lot of mechanisms in Lojban > where, if they were > > removed, then the language would be highly > difficult to use for > > informal communication. > > True. > > > On the other hand, natural languages are > really redundant -- you > > could remove a LOT of mechanisms from a > natural language and it > > would still be practically usable, because > there are so many > > workarounds... > > Definately true. > > > With Lojban, clearly there are no (or hardly > any) mechanisms that > > could be removed and still leave the language > usable..... > > Not true. You could drop all of the mekso > cmavo, FA, and SE with > only very minor restrictions resulting. In > fact, (with my parser at > least), you could drop BAI, which is the > largest cmavo group in the > language, as well. > > That's just off the top of our (the people on > #lojban) heads. > > > And my guess is that there are a few > mechanisms that will still be > > added to Lojban in the future to make the > language more usable > > I doubt that we'll see any new cmavo groups at > this point, although > it's not entirely impossible. We're trying not > to change the > language any more, but only to fix serious > problems. > > > It seems like it has been a lot of work to > add enough mechanisms > > to Lojban to make it usable without > sacrificing the spirit of the > > language.. > > So I gather. I wasn't around for that. > > -Robin > > -- > http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** > http://www.lojban.org/ > Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their > Grate!" > Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - > http://singinst.org/ > > > >