From lojban-out@lojban.org Sun Aug 14 19:43:23 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 90153 invoked from network); 15 Aug 2005 02:43:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m9.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 15 Aug 2005 02:43:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Aug 2005 02:43:22 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E4Uwb-0001qn-Gs for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Sun, 14 Aug 2005 19:43:21 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E4Uv4-0001pt-CD; Sun, 14 Aug 2005 19:41:50 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 14 Aug 2005 19:41:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E4Uul-0001pc-9z for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 14 Aug 2005 19:41:27 -0700 Received: from [208.234.8.229] (helo=intelligenesiscorp.com) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E4Uuh-0001pT-Ue for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 14 Aug 2005 19:41:27 -0700 Received: from zombiethustra (pcp06586041pcs.nrockv01.md.comcast.net [69.140.24.121]) by intelligenesiscorp.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id j7F2fCIk029424; Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:41:13 -0400 Cc: "Ari Heljakka" , "Izabela Lyon Freire Goertzel" Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2005 22:41:09 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <20050814214049.46034.qmail@web81308.mail.yahoo.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Importance: Normal X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 10351 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: ben@goertzel.org X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0:0 X-eGroups-From: "Ben Goertzel" From: "Ben Goertzel" Reply-To: ben@goertzel.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Loglish: A Modest Proposal X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=e50-fd-0Qig13ybSsM8TT3aPHEIdDfPPLjWN89AS-uTHDilZdA X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 24729 > The example, though I assume it is not meant > seriously, illustrates the problem that has been > found in these regimented English proposals: Loglish is not fairly called "regimented English", because its syntax is 98% Lojban; only its vocabulary is English >the > whole range of ambiguity of the natural language > creeps in I disagree -- Loglish uses Lojban syntax, so that most of the ambiguities of English do not creep in. The only English ambiguities that creep in are ambiguities regarding -- word sense -- argument position but this is a small percent of all English ambiguities, and is resolved by proper use of qui and quu. > Loglish also loses what is practically Lojban's > most significant feature for any computer use: > the unique decomposition and parsing. That is sort of correct; however Loglish as I defined it will have *close to unique* parsing IF quu is used correctly, so that it's possible to resolve the intended argument position from the quu specifier using simple, automated semantic inference. In nearly all cases it will be possible to achieve successful results via simple algorithms such as "Resolve 'X qui Y' to the sense of X whose WordNet definition has the smallest semantic distance to Y." "Given 'X quu Y' , assign Y to the argument position of X whose description in the Loglish dictionary has the smallest semantic distance to Y." I'm quite confident these algorithms would work with 97%+ accuracy, and 99%+ accuracy after some training and fiddling. Of course, this quu algorithm requires a Loglish dictionary to be written, but this dictionary doesn't have to be complete because one can use another algorithm: "Given 'X quu Y' , if X is not in the Loglish dictionary, find the semantically closest Z to X so that Z is in the Loglish dictionary, and assign Y to the argument position of Z whose description in the Loglish dictionary has the smallest semantic distance to Y, and then assign Y to a corresponding argument position for X" I bet this will work with 90%+ accuracy. Obviously this is more complex and funkier than Lojban parsing, but OTOH having the full English vocabulary to use is a big thing... > I suppose that > "qui" -- and in another way "quu" -- would come > to function like this in Loglish, both > disambiguating simple expressions and > constructing new complexes. It seems a viable -- > though remarkably messy and uninteresting -- > idea. I agree it's viable and messy, but I don't find it uninteresting. But of course, this is a matter of taste ;-) Tanru are also messy, and semantically underspecified. What I like is that this messiness of compound formation -- like the messiness of tanru -- occurs within a context of predicate-logic-based syntax/semantics (defined by the Loglish cmavo and sentence structure) -- Ben G To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.