From lojban+bncCK30vq5WEMHQmOkEGgSEomrh@googlegroups.com Thu Jan 06 12:38:42 2011 Received: from mail-pw0-f61.google.com ([209.85.160.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PawbV-0006qg-N2; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:42 -0800 Received: by pwi2 with SMTP id 2sf5185672pwi.16 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:30 -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:date:from:to:subject:message-id :references:mime-version:in-reply-to:user-agent: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-disposition :content-transfer-encoding; bh=9wrdqE7oZWvDIKsGBZ7mCOkyofdWa5pIVKJBL9pjXGw=; b=iAlu7RsoyfRQqLA3FEdxSbSMTuvACzpu/7vxT0sGrTXRvOLRBfX3xdYNh2HXqy0gXg 9mDoSHEsr06KsWlYT2c12v2j4rpUiuqsWKmPmEn1orOO5MgnZhm+eemapWJg4qPUAubg qzMI7/CFnQdN6/NS1FFm3gA0OqfeRxX9cFq7k= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:date:from:to:subject:message-id:references :mime-version:in-reply-to:user-agent: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-disposition :content-transfer-encoding; b=fYSmtuHNZezRQQSNWl8BiKVkC2IM8N4BsRnIInz3gd6dDEtaQu2Nm2MyTqjO0Rz1DR yB/SrM+kzVgSoqnr8Ztwiz4MUKzf03TrkluMS/iomTxxdgpd1BhJ9Kd050cI0Jcu+1c9 4+oZYgYhd7oYwG7CiP2IOXEoIgzE7pF6Qfizc= Received: by 10.142.65.4 with SMTP id n4mr93252wfa.19.1294346305914; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:25 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.142.249.41 with SMTP id w41ls29066770wfh.1.p; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:24 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.142.136.17 with SMTP id j17mr1082702wfd.7.1294346304532; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:24 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.142.136.17 with SMTP id j17mr1082699wfd.7.1294346304493; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org (digitalkingdom.org [173.13.139.234]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p40si1364266wfc.6.2011.01.06.12.38.24 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:24 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org designates 173.13.139.234 as permitted sender) client-ip=173.13.139.234; Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PawbH-0006qZ-Km for lojban@googlegroups.com; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:38:23 -0800 Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 12:38:23 -0800 From: Robin Lee Powell To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Lojban is *NOT* broken! Stop saying that! (was Re: [lojban] Re: Vote for the Future Global Language) Message-ID: <20110106203823.GG23787@digitalkingdom.org> 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> <20110106203441.GD8367@nvg.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20110106203441.GD8367@nvg.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-Original-Sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org designates 173.13.139.234 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org 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=windows-1252 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 09:34:41PM +0100, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote: > On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 09:13:47AM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 06, 2011 at 04:51:59PM +0000, And Rosta wrote: > >=20 > > > What a real grammar would do is define a set of > > > correspondences between sentence forms and sentence meanings. > >=20 > > [...] I have no idea how you could formalize such a thing (and > > I'm not terribly sure I care, to be honest). >=20 > For what it's worth, ERG is an example of such a thing: > http://www.delph-in.net/erg/ >=20 > To summarize your objection from further downthread: =93Formal > semantics is just a system for transforming one string of > meaningless symbols into another string of meaningless symbols, so > what's the point?=94 >=20 > Well, to a certain extent you're right, but if you choose the > right kind of semantic representation, you can do things like > proving that two different strings of Lojban have the same > meaning. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the moment no machine > grammar of Lojban represents the fact that =93mi viska do=94 is > equivalent to =93do se viska mi=94. Right, very true. People have started playing with that. Also, quoting from elsewhere in the thread: xorxes and I have done *some* work on "formal" definitions of cmavo; see http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=3DBPFK+Section%3A+gadri , and I have occassionally fantasized about picking a few predicate-logic-related words as axioms and defining the entire rest of the language in terms of them. > I don't think that we absolutely need to have such a thing, and I > am certainly not volunteering to make it, but if we did have such > a thing, I'm sure it would reveal one or two problems about Lojban > grammar that no-one's thought about before. *nodnod* -Robin --=20 http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future. Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false" is "na nei". My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/ --=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.