Lojban a Natural language? / Masses, socks, Julius, and all that

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

>From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
>Subject:      Re: Lojban a natural language?
>
>Lojbab:
>> Yes, but if Lojban is to be used for linguistics research, then at some
>> time, we have to treat it like one.
>
>On the contrary, it will be of no interest to treat it like one if it
>isn't one.  Lojban is already being used for linguistics research -
>that's what all the "how do you say it?"s and similar discussion on this
>list is.  The interest in these questions is not the answer to the
>question "how is it customarily said?" but to "how should it logically
>be said?".

I hope you understood that I meant "linguisitcs research" as it is
commonly understood in academia i.e., leading to peer-reviewed
publication, and scientific credibility.

There are a large category of linguists, and others, who will not take
Lojban seriously until it appears in papers in _Language_ or similar
journals.  Just as there are some that will not take us seriously until
we have dictionary/grammar/textbook in hardcopy in at least two
languages.

>  As you know, I think linguistics students would benefit from
>studying Lojban, but if they are to study a natural language then Lojban
>would be the last language to choose as a candidate.

Scientific credibility is IMPORTANT.  Without scientific credibility,
only a few renegades like And Rosta would consider using Lojban in a
linguistics class %^).  And then there is the matter of funding.  Right
now Lojban is coasting along on the backs of several people putting all
their spare time into it, and yet not getting the work done.  There are
a lot of things I would be really interested in doing with Lojban, if I
didn't have to devote much of my effort to publishing and organizational
work.

Other things I feel less than competent to do myself, but would like to
see done.  For example a decent Lojban-English translator, the
long-dreamed of enhancement to Nora's glosser.  Or the Lojban natural
language processor that we wrote the DARPA proposal on a few years ago.
These are things that will take multiple people and many person-months
if not person-years to accomplish, and they won't get done very soon by
Lojban hobbyists.

But the moment we get one 100K grant, qualified people will probably
make the effort to get more, taking the potential risk to their academic
credibility.  And the moment we succeed in getting even one bona fide
peer-reviewed linguistics publication, our chance of getting a grant
will multiply astronomically.

Until then, for most people, Lojban remains in the Catch-22 situation
that people will learn it when it is useful, and it will be useful when
people learn it.

>Of course if
>children acquire it, then that's a different matter.  It would be
>extremely interesting.

Certainly it would.

But Esperanto has slowly been gaining in respect in the linguistic world
the last decade, as if the recognized existence of native speakers made
the language "real" But linguists also recognizze that native
Esperantists are not the role-models for correct language, and hence
what little literature there is that mentions Esperanto (e.g. in
_Interlinguistics_), does NOT focus on the language of native speakers,
but of adult 2nd language speakers.

But this literature is still focussing on descriptive use of the
language.  A question nowadays about "How do you say X?" in Lojban is
debated rationally, and perhaps decided %^).  In "real language", which
includes Esperanto in this case, someone who is a fluent speaker comes
up with an answer and it is more or less accepted as being correct,
whether or not it is logical.

I think it is safe to say that neither Lojbab, John Cowan, nor Nick
Nicholas, supposedly most skilled in the language, can hardly write even
one sentence in Lojban, without SOMEONE telling them (often correctly, I
admit) why their usage was incorrect %^).  Though that happens in
prescriptivist circles in natural languages, it is not the norm in
everyday conversation.

>> I mean complete in the same sense that we say any natural language is
>> complete.  We do not and cannot fix the leaky roof of the English
>> language, and many would say that no one has a "right" to.
>
>The Lojban design is massively incomplete by this criterion.  There are
>huge gaping lacunae in the semantics and the lexicon.

I don't think so.  The Lojban PRESCRIPTION is massively incomplete.  But
one cannot say that the design is incomplete unless I cannot communicate
with you and get across my point without relying on English-native
semantic conventions.  That Jorge and Tobar, native speakers of
Argentinian Spanish and Croatian, have been able to carry on
indefinitely long conversations in Lojban, and that Ivan Derzhanski's
translations from Bulgarian into Lojban were widely understood show that
the actual gaps in the semantics and lexicon are not real - people can
coin understandable words that are understood in context, even though
the context and conventions are not that of their native language.

But it is incomplete to some people who feel that a language isn't
complete until you have an OED quality dictionary of the near-total
language vocabulary.  We are spoiled with respect to English by the
quality of documentation on semantics and lexicon issues, though English
grammar documentation is far from thorough.  Lojban has thorough
documentation of the grammar, and gaps in documention of lexicon and
semantics (and some real holes in the latter, I admit, but small ones I
think).  Georgian and Inuit are quite real languages, but probably
neither is documented as well as either Lojban or English in grammar,
semantics, or lexicon.

>> >Your will is representative of the Lojban community at large,
>> I'd like to think so, but the last few months have made be wonder, given
>> the unsettledness and unsettleability of some of the issues that have
>> been raised.
>
>The voluble contributors to the list are only a small minority of the
>community at large, no?

In theory yes, but in practice, there has been no JL for 2 years, and
only one LK in 3 years.  The rest of the community is real, and weighs
heavily on my mind, but they have no contact with, and no input to, the
process of the language.

I can claim to speak for the community, but only because I haven't put
my credibility to much of a test in recent months.  Every year I am
nominally "tested" when I get re-elected President of LLG at LogFest,
but the large majority of LogFest attendees and voting members are
people who also read Lojban List.

Moreover, the last couple of years have made me feel that with regards
to those active people who re-elect me, I represent them
organizationally but not technically.  After all, Jorge voted for me as
LLG president, and I haven't had more than a fraction of my posts go by
unchallenged by him in recent weeks.  That is hard on the ego and
self-confidence, especially when more people agree with Jorge than with
me.

>OTHER BITS & PIECES:
>> > The voluble contributors to the list are only a small minority of
>> > the community at large, no?
>> Depends what you mean by the community. If you mean subscribers of
>> Ju'i, then I suppose the list may be a minority. If you mean those who
>> ever use the language, I would bet we are the overwhelming majority.
>
>I believe there are those who participate minimally or not at all on the
>list but who contribute much time and/or money and/or moral support, and
>have been doing so for a good few years.

Ya know, the Lojban community could easily turn into a NICE example of
masses without straining to bring in left socks.  I will refer to it
down below.

I am not going to denigrate the masses who have given us moral support
and/or money over the years.  I guess I can claim to represent them,
since they have generally expressed that moral support (and money) in my
direction.  But when it comes to technical issues, that support and
moral authority don't count for much.  If I were to rely on my moral
authority to reanalyze and change all the rafsi one more time, I kinda
suspect that my moral authority wouldn't be worth a smelly pile.  The
rest of the ACTIVE community would continue using the status quo set of
rafsi, and my influence would have waned considerably.  And in turn, the
strength of my support from the silent masses would probably dwindle
too, should they hear of my perfidy %^)

JCB did somewhat the same thing.  He squandered his moral authority as
inventor of the language tyring to retain political and economic control
of - not lai loglan, but piro lai loglan.  As a result, he has retained
some, but reduced, moral authority among a small if significant portion
of the community.  A few years ago, even after the split, in the
interests of compromise, JCB's remaining moral authority could have
forced a good deal of change in Lojban in order for it to be both the
dejure and defacto standard Loglan for the whole community.  Now, though
his money and number of supporters has grown somewhat, his moral
authority over Lojban is almost non-existent except in a historical
sense.  And his moral authority over his own community is much weaker
too - he gets regularly corrected on matters logical in TLI Loglan AND
GIVES IN, which pc will testify was a relatively rare occurance in the
old days.  And we regularly win over recruits from his community when
they find out about Lojban.

I don't have, and don't want, that kind of lasting moral authority on
technical matters.  I'd love to be able to bow out of the massed "any"
issues as being out of my depth.  But if I do so, and the result is a
drastic change to the usage of the language by you guys, my influence
over you and my moral authority as well will be much weakened.

On the other hand, if I ever get the bloody books done, and say that the
design phase of the language is over, and "natural language processes"
lead to exactly the same changes by evolution, as you would dictate (or
have me dictate) by decree, my moral authoirty is intact if not enhanced
by the fact that I have lived up to my commitments, and made Lojban a
"living" language if not a "natural" language.  Most non-linguists
consider the former inherently to be a subset of the latter.

>> > even if you would not consent to be considered a rorci.
>> I would consent to being a component of loi rorci
>
>Well, there are some loi rorci be Lojban such that Julius Caesar or my
>left sock is a component of them.  That's not saying much.
>
>What you want to say is that you are a member of a rorci *group*, not a
>component of a rorci *mass*.  Probably you should just consent to being
>{pa lo sohi rorci be loe jbobau}.

See what I mean? %^)

No.  I disagree with you.  Neither Julius Caesar nor your left sock are
components of loi rorci be la lojban.  If you want to be abstruse, you
might argue that they are components of "loi dzena be la lojban."  But I
have trouble even with that since no archetype properties of "lo'e rorci
be da" are or "lo'e dzena be da" are displayed by socks, nor of their
"loi" parallels if you don't like my resorting to "lo'e".  I'm not sure
whether Julius had any acknowledged descendents or even adoptees, but
his relationship is quite distant to Lojban at the very least.

"rorci" to my way of thinking is a close and active relationship.  Since
I have two kids, my image of rorci is based strongly on my direct
perception of the human relationship, which I presume must carry over to
any Lojbanic metaphorical counterpart.


>Suppose you have a mass of (i) Lojbab, (ii) my left sock, (iii) J.
>Caesar.  This mass has various properties, including (a) having written
>Of the Gallic Wars, (b) being somewhat threadbare and perforated, (c)
>being rorci be lo jbobau.  I could therefore refer to this mass as {lo
>rorci be lo jbobau} or as {loi rorci be lo jbobau}.  {suo lua loi jbobau
>rorci cu rorci lo jbobau}.

A mass needs to have some synergy - to be more than the sum of its parts
in the relevant context.  Only you would want think of a context where
such a mass would be understood as having all those properties.
Massification is an intensional linguistic and conceptual act.  If your
intention is to communicate, you won't say "le rorci be la lojban"
referring to Julius Caesar or your sock, either - even though with "le"
being totally in-mind, you are perfectly free to do whatever you want,
logically.

On the off-chance I found myself with your sock, freshly laundered I
hope, and a soiled copy of "Of the Gallic Wars".  I might remove the
soil using your sock and then say that "The mass of Lojbab, And's left
sock, and Julius Caesar produced a clean copy of "Of the Gallic Wars".
And I'm still not all sure this would be a true statement, though it may
be plausible.

I cannot think of a similar machination that allows that same mass to
plausibly be thought of as "lo rorci be la lojban".

"I am typing this at the keyboard".  "My hands are typing this at the
keyboard".  "My hands and eyes are typing this at the keyboard."  "My
hands and And's left sock are *not* typing this at the keyboard."
Having wrapped my t-shirt around my right hand, I can say with some
difficulty that "My hands and my t-shirt are typing this at the
keyboard." (Whew!)

>Take a football team as an example of a group, and some wheat or oats as
>an example of a mass.  The group is much more clearly a collectivity of
>discrete and autonomous members.  It is the nature of the group that
>determines which properties it shares with its members (e.g. scoring a
>goal but not having red hair).  For masses, I see no reason to say that
>masses don't have all properties of their constituents.

Relevant properties please!  Wheat has autonomous members, which a
suitably discerning observer, perhaps an agricultural specialist, might
recognize and think of as discrete.  Water has autonomous members, which
a chemist might recognize, and a purification specialist might be
concerned about removing some of.  To me when I am drinking, water has
no discreteness, unless it is measured in swallows or glassfuls.  To the
chemist, water is molecularly discrete.  Better yet, "air" is not
uniformly composed of one kind of component, and even the average person
may think on occasion about the variety of things present in the cubic
foot of air in fron of his nose (credits to a recent issue of
"Smithsonian" magazine for this example).

"The football team has red hair" might be meaningful to a photographer
wanting to take a picture of the team against a red background, but
helmeted and on the field (per American football), the average fan
cannot see any hair, much less care whether it has a color.

Referring back up to the mass of Lojban supporters.  Are they like your
image of a football team, or are they like wheat?  I can tell you that I
certainly have no idea what your hair color is, or even whether you have
any %^) Some properties of the mass of Lojban supporters are clearly
properties of individuals, perhaps even some specific individuals. e.g.
"ka contributor of money" and "ka writer in the language".  But the
property of "giving Lojbab moral authority" cannot be traced to any
individual.  And there are a few contributors to that moral authority
who have done absolutely nothing beyond acknowledge my existence - I'm
sure I have a few names of people on my mailing list which get counted
in the totals, that never had the slightest interest in the language,
but somehow allowed their address to get on our mailing list (they may
not even be getting our stuff since they may have moved, in which case
there may be a few supporters getting our non-forwarded stuff in the
mail who have never contacted me).  And the color of anyones hair has no
more importance to Lojban than the color of your left sock %^)

>> {loi broda} is by definition identical to {pisu'o loi broda}.
>
>By current stipulation, not by definition (in the sense that it doesn't
>inhere in the meaning of {loi}).  I oppose the current stipulation both
>because it is inconsistent, applying only to {loi/lei/lai} and because I
>don't know of any way of explicitly cancelling the implicit {pisuo}.

I think it is by definition - it inheres unless overridden explicitly.

You cancel the implicit quantifier by putting in your own explicit one.
Why is this hard?

I opine that one could metalinguistically make a statement at the
beginning of text that can change the default throughout the text as an
alternative.

lojbab