From lojban+bncCNuStaWoDxCFmZjpBBoEUejy8Q@googlegroups.com Thu Jan 06 10:40:21 2011 Received: from mail-ww0-f61.google.com ([74.125.82.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Paukz-0005nf-My; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:21 -0800 Received: by wwb34 with SMTP id 34sf18271452wwb.16 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:10 -0800 (PST) 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:received:received:message-id:date :from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :x-original-sender:x-original-authentication-results:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=9iSiClhXC+umY2N5JjV/hjIfXegEec00W9JhSIzFE/4=; b=iwDxMH9C7haLVvJxPt9JySmD9K0jNygJwptxeTWeuNMToNUsbQDbk1MiZMLIVCI2aV FsdZbMKA6yZ0HPt4jn2SfWnjqYvEUsYMQwJPuNWSDMlG4h5tPYNaU/2wGWTUuGTcBbVQ t4/pdw+q7XY5pAXvJZ4nQhTHAHB+kzlL9csjQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:message-id:date:from:user-agent :mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender:list-subscribe :list-unsubscribe:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=LwfS0f7AedTneGQtD31ybmNXzkKsiMCT3suTK5nFVuWjTLCJi6RHebiKkRrrqJUcb1 VVOUAppljCm0KNnNj2ZAbzJWM/ZGYeldq2PGZTjCS4uYugj54LSzP//7IQ4Qj5NVZPfW W/VsKcavVuxs1A6xy6IFXYVtq4/a0oUuZXemQ= Received: by 10.216.172.71 with SMTP id s49mr190906wel.27.1294339205782; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:05 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.216.208.4 with SMTP id p4ls9679548weo.2.p; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:04 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.216.178.13 with SMTP id e13mr1508404wem.11.1294339204727; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:04 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.216.178.13 with SMTP id e13mr1508403wem.11.1294339204615; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-wy0-f177.google.com (mail-wy0-f177.google.com [74.125.82.177]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id l26si2056005weq.14.2011.01.06.10.40.03; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:03 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.177 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.82.177; Received: by wyf22 with SMTP id 22so17269129wyf.22 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:40:03 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.227.127.78 with SMTP id f14mr7293695wbs.62.1294339043475; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:37:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.65] (87-194-76-177.bethere.co.uk [87.194.76.177]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id q18sm17015011wbe.17.2011.01.06.10.37.21 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 06 Jan 2011 10:37:22 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4D260BE0.3020909@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:37:20 +0000 From: And Rosta User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Lojban is *NOT* broken! Stop saying that! (was Re: [lojban] Re: Vote for the Future Global Language) References: <9114501.161.1294150198377.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yqhy19> <7c0687a1-deba-495a-9760-95d1d0649423@t8g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <20110105165231.GK17534@digitalkingdom.org> <4D25F32F.8000209@gmail.com> <20110106171347.GY17534@digitalkingdom.org> In-Reply-To: <20110106171347.GY17534@digitalkingdom.org> X-Original-Sender: and.rosta@gmail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.177 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=and.rosta@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.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: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Robin Lee Powell, On 06/01/2011 17:13: > On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 04:51:59PM +0000, And Rosta wrote: >> Lojban's so-called formal grammar does >> nothing but define a set of structures of phonological strings. > > That's what "formal grammar" *means*; > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar You're quite right, but you'll see that the article says that formal gramma= rs are for formal languages, and (in the description of formal languages in= the article on formal languages) that formal languages aren't human langua= ges. A "formal grammar" in this sense is irrelevant to the specification of= a human language. "Formal grammar" has a further meaning in linguistics, which is "grammar fo= rmulated in an explicit way", and it's this meaning that is relevant to the= specification of a human language. >> What a real grammar would do is define a set of correspondences >> between sentence forms and sentence meanings. > > I don't know what that is, but it's not a formal grammar. Ask > google if you don't believe me. :) =20 >I have no idea how you could formalize such a thing (and I'm not > terribly sure I care, to be honest). If you think about it, I think you will find you do care. Obviously the ess= ential function of a language is to define correspondences between forms an= d meanings. If your putative specification of a language describes only pos= sible forms and says nothing of meanings, then it is simply not a specifica= tion of a language. (Rather, it would be a specification of a "formal langu= age" in the sense referred to above.) As for you having no idea how to formalize such a thing, surely you can ima= gine having and implementing the design goal of a speakable predicate logic= (which was one of Loglan's original goals). Retrofitting such a thing onto= existing Lojban would be difficult, but surely the principle of it is easy= to grasp: rules that take the phonological forms of Lojban sentences and t= ranslate them into predicate logic. =20 >>> We know far more about how Lojban grammatical structures work >>> than *any other actually spoken language on the planet*. >> >> This is one of the attractions of explicit,(A)-wise definitions. >> But of all actually spoken languages on the planet, Lojban is the >> only one that has an explicit, (A)-wise definition, so Lojban wins >> this competition by having no competitors. > > I *know*. :D Isn't it awesome!?!? Certainly awesome enough for it to have kept me interested in it for the la= st 20 years. >> The design of the language itself has little >> intrinsic excellence (when viewed ahistorically), and it is naive >> to deny that it is massively incomplete. > > I completely disagree. I don't see anything even vaguely > approaching "massively incomplete" in any part of Lojban, except > maybe vocabulary. I'd ask you to point to specific examples, but > I'm honstly not sure that I'm terribly interested in debating the > issue. The major incompleteness is in the specification of correspondences between= forms and meanings (i.e. predicate logic). I don't mean the definitions of= individual brivla, but rather the meanings of sentences containing nonbriv= la stuff. --And. --=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.