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[lojban-beginners] Re: RK-like diagramming: Anyone interested?

Jonathan Gibbons wrote:

What I am suggesting, on the other hand, is that it
probably would be appropriate to have the majority of the diagram be
the parse tree; given that the rules for semantic/syntactic groupings
are already well-defined. And I wasn't suggesting generating them
automatically - there are few better ways to understand the operation
of a formal structure, like parsing Lojban, than by doing a manual
trace... 

I guess where I'm coming from is: I've never seen a parse tree
that looked to me like the skeleton of the kind of diagram I
have in mind. They just look different to me.

> I'm more saying that it's not like doing a sentence diagram

for English, which is imposing an order onto something that does not
neccesarily have that order, but rather is expressing an order that is
already fully there in a more instructive way.


Well, it depends on what you mean by order. English isn't machine
parsable, but I do believe that a Lojban sentence diagram and one
for English would serve very much the same purpose.

I think at this point we understand each other, but just happen to
disagree. ;) I'm not arguing with you, of course. In a way it's
rather nonsensical to argue about "how to draw a picture." We each
see it differently because we think differently.

I've seen at least two other ways to represent Lojban visually, and
they all have their merits. I encourage you to come up with a scheme
of your own if you are interested. But any scheme I develop will not
start its life as a decorated parse tree. Not unless I'm still
misunderstanding you.


Hal