From lojban+bncCIywt_XDCRCnvf7dBBoE4AOZ1g@googlegroups.com Fri Apr 09 14:40:22 2010 Received: from mail-vw0-f61.google.com ([209.85.212.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1O0Lvy-0005qc-Rg for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:40:22 -0700 Received: by vws5 with SMTP id 5sf3236152vws.16 for ; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:40:06 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:message-id:x-ymail-osg:received :x-mailer:references:date:from:subject:to:in-reply-to:mime-version :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe :content-type; bh=dG6GjABMKq5d94UD+X3XXqQ2UKh3Bo3PeRqlWFQ3Xpk=; b=BMTObVqyNw5xmjS9tBGj2gbv+Db0y4V9qzz6vfAdg7+KYqyOA0eBt/y1vZws7tTmL5 pWloZ/WuMRaBNc4VrM7EQQuL3bxyh8+qCKMs/VWrYdWRrh1vCaflDj/1+WbF//4kjEvM 7QE8IWwFfQHiTzmJx4gegg3bW/xVQf4ShdQt0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:message-id:x-ymail-osg:x-mailer:references :date:from:subject:to:in-reply-to:mime-version :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe :content-type; b=qIY7TrUE98TQ4IHnURoREyaq+AbMwbZV4SUdMI9H4cCvHTvDyIUiJf6zgMUHntk9Wu uHUi7+iuLjRKVisEkPNXtf5grCxhzIfA8pRQJXzjuCzalh7OrSFScK1G+/CiCG0CQi5i 8LsBVB5dKuzmCNhF9QiLY2qZTw9zCt+5c1LKo= Received: by 10.220.124.135 with SMTP id u7mr54680vcr.38.1270849191765; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:51 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.220.79.85 with SMTP id o21ls227825vck.0.p; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.167.16 with SMTP id o16mr200253vcy.19.1270849190481; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.167.16 with SMTP id o16mr200251vcy.19.1270849190401; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com (web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.199.120]) by gmr-mx.google.com with SMTP id 27si4151509vws.5.2010.04.09.14.39.49; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:49 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of kali9putra@yahoo.com designates 68.142.199.120 as permitted sender) client-ip=68.142.199.120; Received: (qmail 56215 invoked by uid 60001); 9 Apr 2010 21:39:48 -0000 Message-ID: <752433.56208.qm@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-YMail-OSG: k429bR4VM1lhAQXQ3lxSlxmTX_94IMBlyBJcCdFVgyv9.RR 0kYQkwtyLfoWKbzbGJy8i7JnKeJB7aLcNgTA5Ty8shI02H.zV3ISF3NyLQhR b3EH7QxgDl7apAyjNd0OD6yD7CXtJdBnGkkMTfVlqETEYnbsaUHBa9IF6lip W6PTHtLr.JoE5yusYiWVDYxO2NYafUioVoBlEGdJaNAFEk003DPCivyqLiQ5 1qW3ioSjAXEv.Nc7u1V2fxCDBMcWsBG8D9h_bORl4xq5kmQTyg0bz2q0PNyN IvUSVmchLcOFcTfVi6_KGDScw8WQT_O3SiHkIGQPYtpH.tVsRGjlRPm.4RbK EtMINPH5WlaxFa09CyewzvYzPWOe78V8Igzwasg-- Received: from [71.14.73.129] by web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:39:48 PDT X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/348.3 YahooMailWebService/0.8.100.260964 References: <20100405210225.GW6084@digitalkingdom.org> <20100409002127.GA11541@digitalkingdom.org> <867212.21796.qm@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 14:39:48 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-announcements] Essay on the future of Lojban, with a simple poll for the community. To: lojban@googlegroups.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of kali9putra@yahoo.com designates 68.142.199.120 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=kali9putra@yahoo.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@yahoo.com X-Original-Sender: kali9putra@yahoo.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: X-Thread-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/t/c67f210addc06a0c X-Message-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/msg/5c05cbaeb7ffc139 Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-255218005-1270849188=:56208" --0-255218005-1270849188=:56208 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks, I needed that! =20 It will not surprise you that one of the first suggestions that went into t= he LoCCan3 file was that no predicate have more that three arguments (with = the possible exception of 'klama' where all actually seemed to fit). In pa= rticular, there are a lot of items that turn up on hundreds of predicates a= nd are relevant to all in the same -- non-essential -- way ("of material" i= s good. "in respect" is another and we could go on -- and doubtless will). = We have JCB to thank for this, of course: he wanted to define everything u= sing the fewest number of terms but without the fudging that such attempts = ("Philosophical Languages") usually involve. So he packed as much as he fe= lt he reasonably could into each predicate (maybe a bit more). One result = of this is that, when you go to the concept in the lebbenty-lebbenth place,= it comes with a mass of irrelevant hangers-on (and with different ones whe= n you get it from different places, even when the intention is that the concept be the same) (Of course, he quickly moved on to the usual fudg= ing anyhow.) Oh yeah, from the logical point of view, filling all those sl= ots with nullity creates a great heave in the semantic mechanism.=20 Another early suggestion was to build some redundancy into the language. E= verything is so tight that one typo throws the whole meaning off into some = far off field (I'm sure examples spring to mind from your last fast typing = or speaking session). Alas, things are so tight and the tightness is so ce= ntral to the analytic phase of the linguistics, that it is hard to see how = to do it, short of lengthening all the words by a syllable or two, filled w= ith semantic junk. =20 Of course, redistributing the gismu in a random way would help a little but= lose the claimed "ease of learning" (never proven and anecdotally strongly= denied). Some CCC's might help too, but present obstacles to learning for= some (and some such would for all). And all this would make new word cons= truction even harder (which recent discussions suggests might not be a tota= lly bad thing). =20 By the way, Montague would slap my hand (again) for calling his grammar tra= nsformational, but that is an easier label to use than trying to explain wh= at actually goes on (though that muddle is very useful in its own right). ________________________________ From: Christopher Doty To: lojban@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, April 9, 2010 2:31:20 PM Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-announcements] Essay on the future of Lo= jban, with a simple poll for the community. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:08, John E Clifford wrote: > > >It might be useful to list the ways in which Lojban fails to meet human la= nguage standards. I personally can't think of one (even xorlo has, alas, h= uman analogs). Remember that at least one school of linguists think that a= ll sentences in any natural language are merely transforms of predicate log= ic sentences, with minor loss of information. > >Oops. In theory iirc Lojban can require processing depths that no human l= anguage in fact has (though I am not sure that there is a theory that says = they can't have it) and some parts of Lojban do require keeping in mind the= details of the developing sentence structure which again exceed the need i= n natural languages (again only in fact perhaps). (Quoting from two different emails for convenience...)=20 I am, very very fortunate not be part of the school of linguistics that bel= ieves in silly things like transformations (nor Russel's teapot). When I s= ay that Lojban violates things that human languages do, I'm not appealing i= n any sense to "Universal Grammar;" I'm simply say that, when you look at t= he languages of the world (henceforth, "languages"), certain things happen = and certain things don't. Maybe they CAN, but the fact that they don't is = pretty telling about human brains process speech. I see two, maybe three, areas where there is a problem from a linguistic pe= rspective. The first is that languages do not have verbs with more than fo= ur unmarked slots for a predicate, and there are VERY few that have four; t= he vast majority of verbs in the vast majority of languages have three or l= ess. If you get more than four, you ALWAYS have some sort of marking (most= often as an oblique phrase; i.e., a preposition or a postposition)) that i= ndicates how the additional argument relates to the predicate. Yet, Lojban= has gismu which take more than four arguments. If it were testable, I wou= ld put a LOT of money the fact that, after Lojban was released into the wil= d, you could do a text count and find that predicates rarely, if ever, have= more than three arguments in them, and that the three arguments pretty muc= h always had the three closest to the gismu. It is worthwhile to note, especially for those who like Lojban to be mind-b= ending, that this fact likely has nothing to do with language, and everythi= ng to do with cognition. On average, working memory holds something like 4= -7 items (try using a phone menu with 9 items; it is extremely annoying and= frustrating, and makes it hard to do anything except listen to the list of= options). It is thus no surprise that, in languages, four is the maximum = (three arguments and a verb, with a couple verbs that take four), especiall= y if one considers that most utterances have more than just the verbs and t= he arguments. I think this is what you meant by "processing depth"--the pro= blem is that most humans actually CAN'T PROCESS at the depth needed for a g= ismu with seven places. You could argue that this processing depth is lear= nable--maybe it is, but I'd bet that learning to hold more in working memor= y is very closely tied to how much you could process before any training. This also might be fine for a written language, since you can s= it and look at a sentence, but in speech, people just aren't going to be ab= le to process Lojban. The second problem (or second half of this first problem) is that some of t= he gismu seem to have tons of extra stuff in them that is not something tha= t would be included in the meaning of a word in any language. "Bucket," fo= r example, contains a predicate slot for the material the bucket is made fr= om. This, as far as I could tell, was thrown in to make the gismu have more= slots. The material a bucket is made of has far less to do with bucketnes= s than, say, all of the things in klama have to do with going. And why doe= s "bucket" have it and not, say, "bird"? I can call something that isn't a= living bird (say, a drawing of a bird), but why doesn't it a gismu slot to= indicate it's material? If buckets get a slot for material, so should eve= rything. Both of these things are easily fixed, though, without totally barfing up L= ojban. There might be a few special gismu that have more than four slots, = but for most, the additional slots should really be looked at to see if the= y are needed, along with the weird ones in words like "bucket." A handful = of cmavo (or even gismu) for things like "material made of" would be much m= ore widely useable, as would a very general something like "means." The third thing is more of a pet peeve, and not something I would actually = like to see changed (although it is worth considering if a new LoCCan is cr= eated), and that is that the process of word creation results in things whi= ch are very, very similar--all gismu, for example, have a set structure whi= ch is clearly delimited. Although this is very logical and makes it easy t= o point at a word and tell, completely unambiguously, if it is a gismu or n= ot, it is simply not how languages work. For example, the words for colors= in English have no clear relationship to each other, nor that class to the= class of intransitive verbs. But, in Lojban, EVERYTHING that makes a pred= icate looks like everything else that makes a predicate. I would very much= doubt that memorizing the 1300 or so gismu in Lojban would be at all compa= rable to learning 1300 of, say, Spanish, because there is more for your bra= in to stick to. (This is also part of my objection to Jorge's language-name proposal, but I'll address that separately.) So, there 'tis--what the linguist doesn't like about Lojban (which, it is w= orth noting, is far less than what he DOES like, but still). Chris --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den. =20 --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den. --0-255218005-1270849188=:56208 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Thanks, I needed that! 
It will not surprise you= that one of the first suggestions that went into the LoCCan3 file was that= no predicate have more that three arguments (with the possible exception o= f 'klama' where all actually seemed to fit).  In particular, there are= a lot of items that turn up on hundreds of predicates and are relevant to = all in the same -- non-essential -- way ("of material" is good. "in respect= " is another and we could go on -- and doubtless will).  We have JCB t= o thank for this, of course: he wanted to define everything using the fewes= t number of terms but without the fudging that such attempts ("Philosophica= l Languages") usually involve.  So he packed as much as he felt he rea= sonably could into each predicate (maybe a bit more).  One result of this is that, when you go to the concept in the lebbenty-lebbenth place= , it comes with a mass of irrelevant hangers-on (and with different ones wh= en you get it from different places, even when the intention is that the co= ncept be the same) (Of course, he quickly moved on to the usual fudging any= how.)  Oh yeah, from the logical point of view, filling all those slot= s with nullity creates a great heave in the semantic mechanism.

Ano= ther early suggestion was to build some redundancy into the language. = Everything is so tight that one typo throws the whole meaning off into som= e far off field (I'm sure examples spring to mind from your last fast typin= g or speaking session).  Alas, things are so tight and the tightness i= s so central to the analytic phase of the linguistics, that it is hard to s= ee how to do it, short of lengthening all the words by a syllable or two, f= illed with semantic junk. 
Of course, redistr= ibuting the gismu in a random way would help a little but lose the claimed = "ease of learning" (never proven and anecdotally strongly denied).  So= me CCC's might help too, but present obstacles to learning for some (and so= me such would for all).  And all this would make new word construction= even harder (which recent discussions suggests might not be a totally bad = thing). 

By the way, Montague would slap my hand (again) for c= alling his grammar transformational, but that is an easier label to use tha= n trying to explain what actually goes on (though that muddle is very usefu= l in its own right).
From: Christopher D= oty <suomichris@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, April 9, 2010 2:31:20 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-anno= uncements] Essay on the future of Lojban, with a simple poll for the commu= nity.

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 11:08, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yaho= o.com> wrote:
It might be useful to list the ways in which Lojban fails= to meet human language standards.  I personally can't think of one (e= ven xorlo has, alas, human analogs).  Remember that at least one schoo= l of linguists think that all sentences in any natural language are merely = transforms of predicate logic sentences, with minor loss of information.

Oops.  In theory iirc Lojban can require processing dep= ths that no human language in fact has (though I am not sure that there is = a theory that says they can't have it) and some parts of Lojban do require = keeping in mind the details of the developing sentence structure which agai= n exceed the need in natural languages (again only in fact perhaps).

(Quoting from two different emails f= or convenience...) 

I am, very very fortunate= not be part of the school of linguistics that believes in silly things lik= e transformations (nor Russel's teapot).  When I say that Lojban viola= tes things that human languages do, I'm not appealing in any sense to "Univ= ersal Grammar;" I'm simply say that, when you look at the languages of the = world (henceforth, "languages"), certain things happen and certain things d= on't.  Maybe they CAN, but the fact that they don't is pretty telling = about human brains process speech.

I see two, maybe three, areas where there is a problem = from a linguistic perspective.  The first is that languages do not hav= e verbs with more than four unmarked slots for a predicate, and there are V= ERY few that have four; the vast majority of verbs in the vast majority of = languages have three or less.  If you get more than four, you ALWAYS h= ave some sort of marking (most often as an oblique phrase; i.e., a preposit= ion or a postposition)) that indicates how the additional argument relates = to the predicate.  Yet, Lojban has gismu which take more than four arg= uments.  If it were testable, I would put a LOT of money the fact that= , after Lojban was released into the wild, you could do a text count and fi= nd that predicates rarely, if ever, have more than three arguments in them,= and that the three arguments pretty much always had the three closest to t= he gismu.

It is worthwhile to note, especially for those wh= o like Lojban to be mind-bending, that this fact likely has nothing to do w= ith language, and everything to do with cognition.  On average, workin= g memory holds something like 4-7 items (try using a phone menu with 9 item= s; it is extremely annoying and frustrating, and makes it hard to do anythi= ng except listen to the list of options).  It is thus no surprise that= , in languages, four is the maximum (three arguments and a verb, with a cou= ple verbs that take four), especially if one considers that most utter= ances have more than just the verbs and the arguments. I think this is= what you meant by "processing depth"--the problem is that most humans actu= ally CAN'T PROCESS at the depth needed for a gismu with seven places.  = ;You could argue that this processing depth is learnable--maybe it is, but = I'd bet that learning to hold more in working memory is very closely tied to how much you could process before any training.  This also mi= ght be fine for a written language, since you can sit and look at a sentenc= e, but in speech, people just aren't going to be able to process Lojban.

The second problem (or second half of this first proble= m) is that some of the gismu seem to have tons of extra stuff in them that = is not something that would be included in the meaning of a word in any lan= guage.  "Bucket," for example, contains a predicate slot for the mater= ial the bucket is made from. This, as far as I could tell, was thrown in to= make the gismu have more slots.  The material a bucket is made of has= far less to do with bucketness than, say, all of the things in klama have = to do with going.  And why does "bucket" have it and not, say, "bird"?=  I can call something that isn't a living bird (say, a drawing of a b= ird), but why doesn't it a gismu slot to indicate it's material?  If b= uckets get a slot for material, so should everything.

Both of these things are easily fixed, though, without = totally barfing up Lojban.  There might be a few special gismu that ha= ve more than four slots, but for most, the additional slots should really b= e looked at to see if they are needed, along with the weird ones in words l= ike "bucket."  A handful of cmavo (or even gismu) for things like "mat= erial made of" would be much more widely useable, as would a very general s= omething like "means."

The third thing is more of a pet peeve, and not somethi= ng I would actually like to see changed (although it is worth considering i= f a new LoCCan is created), and that is that the process of word creation r= esults in things which are very, very similar--all gismu, for example, have= a set structure which is clearly delimited.  Although this is very lo= gical and makes it easy to point at a word and tell, completely unambiguous= ly, if it is a gismu or not, it is simply not how languages work.  For= example, the words for colors in English have no clear relationship to eac= h other, nor that class to the class of intransitive verbs.  But, in L= ojban, EVERYTHING that makes a predicate looks like everything else that ma= kes a predicate.  I would very much doubt that memorizing the 1300 or = so gismu in Lojban would be at all comparable to learning 1300 of, say, Spa= nish, because there is more for your brain to stick to.  (This is also part of my objection to Jorge's language-name proposal, but I'll a= ddress that separately.)

So, there 'tis--what the linguist doesn't like about Lo= jban (which, it is worth noting, is far less than what he DOES like, but st= ill).

Chris

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