[lojban-beginners] Re: A few questions...

[Matt Arnold <mattarn@123.net>]

>When I was a kid (at an old-fashioned school using old-
>fashioned textbooks), stress was laid on the art of diagramming
>sentences. It was thought to be a useful tool in explaining
>English grammar. Most people thought of it as a cruel form of
>punishment, but I secretly ate it up. (This is where conlangers
>come from.) I thought it *really* clarified the way sentences
>and grammar worked.  So...
>3. Has anyone ever thought about coming up with a system for
>diagramming Lojban utterances? Or would anyone be interested?
>la xal.

Hal, 
I've thought about this for quite a while myself and would like very much for it to be developed. The output of {jbofi'e}, although good, is still linear and does very little to communicate non-verbally through graphic design. Ideally, it would offer the option of output of a JPEG of nested boxes representing bridi, selbri, sumti and so forth, with function words fitting into them like sockets or adapters.
I went partway in that direction in the PDFs that I made of the first 19 pages of the Level 0 Booklet, a project in progress, which typesets and illustrates the diagrams with nested tables.
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=89
However, a great thing would be something representing how a gismu is like a gadget that has up to five sockets in which to plug pronouns or descriptors:
http://www.nemorathwald.com/lojbantoy.jpg
You see, now this is helpful and instructive to a newbie for understanding the grammar, in a way that the jbofi'e output is definitely not. The visual idea can be taken much further. For instance, modals would take the shape of a new slot or socket that can be tacked on, which immediately visually teaches what a modal is.
- epkat

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