From lojban-out@lojban.org Mon Aug 15 07:19:35 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 15684 invoked from network); 15 Aug 2005 14:19:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172) by m21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 15 Aug 2005 14:19:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Aug 2005 14:19:33 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E4foK-00066w-3S for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:19:32 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E4fmb-00065l-AN; Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:52 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E4fmJ-00065c-2S for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:27 -0700 Received: from web81305.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.80]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E4fmH-00065V-CI for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:26 -0700 Received: (qmail 13029 invoked by uid 60001); 15 Aug 2005 14:17:24 -0000 Message-ID: <20050815141724.13027.qmail@web81305.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [68.88.33.134] by web81305.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:24 PDT Date: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:17:24 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-archive-position: 10360 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net 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: John E Clifford From: John E Clifford Reply-To: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Subject: [lojban] Re: Loglish: A Modest Proposal X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=yrjAxe-oJMopytw9sJ6WskYwAtDrRaRzOOobo1kteTzfJsrSYQ X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 24738 --- Ben Goertzel wrote: > > > 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 This is definitional, of course, but, since, for the most part, Loglan syntax is a subset of English syntax (formally speaking, of course), the name seems to fit. The point is that keeping people to that subset is very difficult if they are native speakers (or even very fluent) in the full set. > >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. It is not clear what percentage of ambiguity is which, especially since they often go together (different syntactical structures often rely on different readings of the same word -- or conversely). But English words are generrally very ambiguous (even when we stick to a single etymology for a phonemic sequence) and this will carry over into Loglish to its disadvantage (relative to Lojban at least). > > 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. Which is only a gleam in some few technicians' eyes. > 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." Does wordNet really have quantized semantic distances? Is it likely to soon? As of now, I suspect this has to be done by hand for the most part. Not that this is necessarily a lethal flaw, but it does cut back on the value of Loglish relative to Lojban, which has unambiguity buiolt in at almost all level (any solution for Loglish would work even more effectively for Lojban). > "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. If X is not in the Loglish dictionary, how do we get a measure of semantic propinquity to X? I am not quite sure how well this will work even with knowledgeable human speakers, let alone with machines. Obviously this is more complex and funkier than > Lojban parsing, but OTOH > having the full English vocabulary to use is a > big thing... And a source of many of the problems -- even (maybe especially) if all the words are fully defined. > > 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. Quite true. I didn't say that Lojban was not messy -- though we tend to talk about that as "creative space' or the like. The same would apply to Loglish "qui" and "quu," to the detriment of automatic interpreting, though perhaps as an aid to literature. Still, the problems with Lojban are inherently smaller than those with Loglish, since the semantic range of the items involved is smaller (and remember that the most stunning uses of combo are precisely those that involve the largest leaps over semantic distance, not the ones that are calculable as the shortest leaps). > 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) Yes, I too like (for professional reasons if no other) the underlying FOPL. But it seems to me that, having started down that route, we should follow it as far as feasible. Lojban seems to me to be pretty close to that goal (some further steps have turned up in various proposals over theyears that have not gotten incorporated into the development of Lojban, but they are mainly rather minor -- trimming, not the core. 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.