From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Dec 19 10:48:30 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.54) id 1EoQ3Q-0006CL-0P for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:12 -0800 Received: from simba.math.ucla.edu ([128.97.4.125]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.54) id 1EoQ3M-0006CE-0q for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:11 -0800 Received: by simba.math.ucla.edu (Postfix, from userid 500) id 2FD393BD7A; Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by simba.math.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B0843B336 for ; Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:06 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:48:06 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Carter To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Chess-and-Tetris Hypothesis In-Reply-To: <847037620.20051217094424@mail.ru> Message-ID: References: <847037620.20051217094424@mail.ru> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 10933 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Sat, 17 Dec 2005, Yanis Batura wrote: > Hereby I describe my hypothesis about speaking Lojban (goi ko'a), called > "The Chess-and-Tetris hypothesis", name derivation below. > --snip-- > HYPOTHESIS 3 (Chess-and-Tetris hypothesis): THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN > NATURAL-TYPE LANGUAGES AND NON-NATURAL-TYPE LANGUAGES LIKE DIFFERENCE > BETWEEN TETRIS AND CHESS. HUMAN BRAIN WILL NEVER GET ACCUSTOMED TO > NON-NATURAL-TYPE LANGUAGES TO THE GRADE WHEN IT WON'T THINK WHILE > SPEAKING THEM. I don't have the references right at hand, but there's a current theory of linguistics that humans' language processors are innately capable of making certain distinctions like consonants vs vowels, and recognizing certain semantic categories like actor vs object. (And many, many more in each category.) These classifications are ordered by importance to produce rules of morphology, grammar, etc. But natural languages vary wildly in the importance ranking; e.g. in Chinese and Lojban words must end in vowels (or .) and you can't split nonconforming text into words, while in English the vowel-consonant distinction at word end is at the bottom of the importance list. [Constructed] languages which use only innate language processor features are in the "tetris" category, while those which go outside, such as traditional mathematical typesetting, are like chess, requiring cognitive processing. I believe that one of the original Lojban/Loglan goals was to produce a natural-type language -- although defining "natural-type" is not easy, even knowing what we know now, since any experiments on what the human brain can innately do are difficult and give vague conclusions. To the extent that a language feature consistently requires cognitive assistance, I would say that it's a misfeature, going against the goal of being a natural-type language. Of course everything in the language requires cognitive help when you're just starting, but I'm talking about features that nobody can get right without careful thought. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key) 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.