From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Sep 22 17:22:11 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KhvfO-0003bV-CD for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:11 -0700 Received: from rv-out-0708.google.com ([209.85.198.241]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KhvfL-0003bB-F7 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:10 -0700 Received: by rv-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id b17so1728497rvf.46 for ; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:06 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=+QGkJeuavhosIz4KXTuuSqSS8AVUXReLsnX8ALtf22g=; b=fy0MiQ9Ejbz1jCCFtCI3wEcCTqiIMJ1Q1+WR+DmvYmUUPplafiULz8nEOVGBp/nIdb go0EGr7kI6NDlK28XAM3Oivrp1xyqYaO31HEXDgHK1sW61Sgg8ezPjRTS6975L/r8YQt ksVV/qFHWX/5U3BKWmpEVktBfYlksBLOOHAr0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:references; b=m2qJIONZkGOYNuhJNlRhLX3omHSU7o0d8jgqdsRYwkisKIhxwu4ylf+vatQt/gQ8tz HK6PI4D/ezXU4QCPUDDuPrAObjau145ep6doNU11Uz3+DiO1ccJ5GVPY0IlcIGQQQIAq Ss6G+rSp7OxbTMcLLgyNE9f6kKMSlwV4i6pt0= Received: by 10.142.212.18 with SMTP id k18mr151687wfg.258.1222129326306; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.214.14 with HTTP; Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:22:06 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:22:06 -0400 From: "Brett Williams" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: How to spread the word In-Reply-To: <737b61f30809211137m68daea76nb9b699b0ddcfd475@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_73069_11209880.1222129326283" References: <1222020317.3622.4.camel@tulcod-desky> <737b61f30809211137m68daea76nb9b699b0ddcfd475@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14784 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list ------=_Part_73069_11209880.1222129326283 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On 9/21/08, Chris Capel wrote: > > > I imagine if some Lojban text heavily relied on grammatical structure > to disambiguate things that would not otherwise be possible to > disambiguate, that reading that text would be a rather time-consuming > and laborious task. I believe most Lojban text relies on the semantics > just as much as English to disambiguate. Observe the ease of getting > gismu places switched around and still being understood. > It's certainly possible to use context to disambiguate in Lojban. It's a perfectly ordinary human language in a lot of ways. Now that I'm more fluent I can usually guess at misspelled gismu, for instance. Indeed it's my impression that those who came before us have given us a language which has just about the right amount of redundancy in just about the right places, which is impressive (and worlds better than most philosophical languages). I think that we also have some unusual tools of disambiguation, though, which shouldn't be underestimated. One phrase that comes irresistably to my mind on this topic is "lo melbi ko li'i cerni". When I first encountered that sentence, I was confused for a few seconds. It was definitely out of my comfort zone. We each have a terrain of what Lojban sentences we expect to encounter, and a lot of our being able to easily understand and disambiguate sentences we hear has to do with fitting them into our habitually expected sentence shapes. There's another level that can come into play when a sentence is unusual though: We have to put our Lojban muscles into action, and tear the sentence apart logically by the rules. ("What's this now? OK, lo melbi.. and then ko is the x2? Of what? Oh li'i! I see, ok, wtf is the x2 of li'i?!" etc) So in the heat of the moment, Lojban as a spoken human language relies just as heavily as any language on habit, familiarity, regularity. One difference is the origin of those regularities: It's not just habit all the way down, but at some point it encounters the bedrock of the formal grammar. That means that inventive use of our language isn't just up to your organic sense of the deep motion of the language (or your chutzpah); you can dig down into the language and find something unusual and new that nonetheless is crystal clear, that everyone will understand the same way (after a moment of confusion). I believe-- though my Lojban isn't quite at the level to prove it (I can barely read simple texts)-- that for more fluent speakers this kind of concrete inventiveness can be very natural and expansive. Of course you can't actually just drive hard down into the grammar all the time, if you're talking to a human, but you can make frequent experiments and excursions. To me the beauty of it isn't merely that it's so simple that it can be parsed by a computer, but that it's so simple that it can be understood by a human mind. Lojban is there before all of us in the air, a shared hallucination of form which is nonetheless tangible, a virtual reality we share. What after all is the purpose of language? It is many purposes. Idle conversation is one, but observe what the confusions & complexities of Lojban become in real conversation in practice: A game! We bring out confusing yet beautiful twists of language, like "lo melbi ko li'i cerni", to watch each other think over them. We have an awareness of which sentences will be familiar and which will be strange. Precise carefully composed works is another purpose, and there I think we must of course strive to use Lojban's unambiguous qualities not as a crutch, but as an extra wagon to drag behind our already clearly constructed expressions. I think if we use them well they can serve us well, and help allow very clear and expansive communication. mu'o mi'e se ckiku ------=_Part_73069_11209880.1222129326283 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline

On 9/21/08, Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com> wrote:

I imagine if some Lojban text heavily relied on grammatical structure
to disambiguate things that would not otherwise be possible to
disambiguate, that reading that text would be a rather time-consuming
and laborious task. I believe most Lojban text relies on the semantics
just as much as English to disambiguate. Observe the ease of getting
gismu places switched around and still being understood.


It's certainly possible to use context to disambiguate in Lojban.  It's a perfectly ordinary human language in a lot of ways.  Now that I'm more fluent I can usually guess at misspelled gismu, for instance.  Indeed it's my impression that those who came before us have given us a language which has just about the right amount of redundancy in just about the right places, which is impressive (and worlds better than most philosophical languages).

I think that we also have some unusual tools of disambiguation, though, which shouldn't be underestimated.  One phrase that comes irresistably to my mind on this topic is "lo melbi ko li'i cerni".  When I first encountered that sentence, I was confused for a few seconds.  It was definitely out of my comfort zone.  We each have a terrain of what Lojban sentences we expect to encounter, and a lot of our being able to easily understand and disambiguate sentences we hear has to do with fitting them into our habitually expected sentence shapes.  There's another level that can come into play when a sentence is unusual though: We have to put our Lojban muscles into action, and tear the sentence apart logically by the rules.  ("What's this now?  OK, lo melbi.. and then ko is the x2?  Of what?  Oh li'i!  I see, ok, wtf is the x2 of li'i?!" etc)

So in the heat of the moment, Lojban as a spoken human language relies just as heavily as any language on habit, familiarity, regularity.  One difference is the origin of those regularities: It's not just habit all the way down, but at some point it encounters the bedrock of the formal grammar.  That means that inventive use of our language isn't just up to your organic sense of the deep motion of the language (or your chutzpah); you can dig down into the language and find something unusual and new that nonetheless is crystal clear, that everyone will understand the same way (after a moment of confusion).

I believe-- though my Lojban isn't quite at the level to prove it (I can barely read simple texts)-- that for more fluent speakers this kind of concrete inventiveness can be very natural and expansive.  Of course you can't actually just drive hard down into the grammar all the time, if you're talking to a human, but you can make frequent experiments and excursions.  To me the beauty of it isn't merely that it's so simple that it can be parsed by a computer, but that it's so simple that it can be understood by a human mind.  Lojban is there before all of us in the air, a shared hallucination of form which is nonetheless tangible, a virtual reality we share.
 
What after all is the purpose of language?  It is many purposes.  Idle conversation is one, but observe what the confusions & complexities of Lojban become in real conversation in practice: A game!  We bring out confusing yet beautiful twists of language, like "lo melbi ko li'i cerni", to watch each other think over them.  We have an awareness of which sentences will be familiar and which will be strange.  Precise carefully composed works is another purpose, and there I think we must of course strive to use Lojban's unambiguous qualities not as a crutch, but as an extra wagon to drag behind our already clearly constructed expressions.  I think if we use them well they can serve us well, and help allow very clear and expansive communication.
 
 mu'o mi'e se ckiku


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