Re: Dr. James Cooke Brown

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 03:41 PM 02/18/2000 -0500, Robert A. McIvor wrote:
>At 11:53 AM -0600 2/18/00, Steven Belknap wrote:
> >From: Steven Belknap <sbelknap@uic.edu>
> >textbook. It is important to understand that Loglan was *never*
> >baselined.
>
> It was never intended that Loglan be baselined. Living
>languages change and grow constantly.

However they do so as a result of the usage of their speakers, and not as a 
result of external direction by scholars who are not necessarily even 
speaking the language. Lojban's baselining was a conscious decision to end 
at some point the imposition of directed change from outside. The current 
period is the time when our speaker base is growing, learning a stable 
language. Once that speaker base reaches a critical level, it will be hard 
to impose change from outside, and indeed discussion of change will likely 
only be respected if it takes place in-language. At that point, the 
baseline can end, and the speaker community will serve as our Loglan keugru 
(academy).

> >In my judgement, there is simply not the manpower nor the will to do
> >what is necessary to independently get Loglan to baseline. At this
> >point, it is still a language "under construction", which tends to
> >discourage anyone from learning the language, as it will very likely
> >change should a baseline be attempted.
>
>In actual fact, changes to the grammar in recent years are very few and far
>between.

This is true. On the other hand, there was a post on 
alt.language.artificial just yesterday that indicated that both dialects 
suffer from the image of perpetual tinkering and no usage. I was able to 
correct him as to Lojban.

> > There are a few
> >inconsistencies and some areas of incompleteness in the Loglan
> >grammer.
>
>I am unaware of inconsistencies in the grammar. Whether or not it is
>complete is a matter of definition. I imagine there are structures in
>other languages that have no counterpart in either Loglan or Lojban.
>e.g. the Turkish 'gossip' tense that has been recently discussed.

Lojban has evidentials, after the manner of Elgin's Laadan and Native 
American languages. These are optional and have the grammar and some of 
the semantics of UI, hence can be attached to tense or other construct. I 
believe that all of the functionality of the tense can be emulated with the 
"I hear" or another evidential, possibly with additional attitudinal markers.

Perhaps Robin Turner, our resident Turkish expert can comment.

lojbab



> >There is no complete dictionary of predicates.
>
>There has been for years a computerized dictionary not only of predicates
>but of most currently used words. I cannot say 'all' as writers can add to
>the list at any time, and
>new versions of the dictionary come out only occasionally. I believe 
>Loglan is
>ahead of Lojban in this regard.
>
> >>There are
> >inconsistencies in the place structures of Loglan words, even within
> >the last published documentation of the language.
>
>I agree with this criticism, but we try to correct these as effort is
>available.
>
> >> I don't think there exists a full grammer. At least I haven't seen one.
>
>There is a published grammar which is conflict free in YACC, and which
>parses all currently well-formed Loglan sentences. I believe it is published
>on the Loglan web site. Rarely (maybe as much as once a year) someone
>produces a sentence that parses or fails to parse as 'da' intended, and
>that da feels should. Such a change is discussed by the 'Academy', and, if
>approved, the grammar is altered. No major changes have occurred for
>years, though there have been some additions.
>
>I suppose
> >one could simply make a new Loglan which is identical to lojban in
> >grammer, but has the Loglan words instead. That would be nearly
> >painless for Loglanders and would be fairly straightforward.
> >
> Since Loglan is not baselined, I am sure we would accept changes
>to the grammar that we could be convinced were desirable for whatever
>reason.
>
> >It is certainly important that the two communities treat each other
> >with mutual respect during the fusion of the two languages. I like
> >the <hoa, xo'a> formalism. If this is done, both communities will
> >have a viable means of communicating unambiguously in the same forum.
>
>Agreed.
>
> >Given the greater size and vigor of the lojban communit, I would
> >predict that the Loglan lexicon will eventually become an alternate
> >historical lexicon, sort of like ancient Greek is to modern Greek.
> >
>
>Time will tell.
>
>Sincerely,
>Robert A. McIvor
>(rmcivor@mac.com)
>

----
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!)