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Re: logical language and usage deciding (was: RE: [lojban] A revised ce'uproposal involving si'o (fwd)

At 05:42 PM 9/17/01 +0100, And Rosta wrote:

An unusual message, this, from you, Lojbab, sounding rather
dejected and not at all combative!
lojbab has realized that being combative is not helping his health or the community. The lojbab lesson has been delivered again. 


#Lojban as a linguistics experiment requires that at some point we see how
#real people use the language without prescription-dogging them.

That particular experiment does, yes. The experiment where seeing
what a balls-up ordinary human minds make of a logical language is in
itself a valuable outcome. (Not being ironic.)

It doesn't cancel out my point, though. It simply confirms the conflicting
goals of different sections of the community.
Yes. My job is to ensure that as much as possible, Lojban is able to be all things to all people. An impossible goal, but I am obliged to do my best, because that was the platform upon which I undertook the job and garnered support for the effort. To choose some goals at the expense of others inevitably will alienate and perhaps drive away supporters. 


#The bottom line is that at some point the legislating has to stop.  That is
#when the 5 year baseline should start, so we can have 5 uninterrupted years
#of people learning something that everyone agrees will remain
#stable.  Right now these debates make ME feel the language is unstable, and
#is requiring significant unlearning and relearning from someone who doesn't
#learn languages easily in the first place.  One of my basic principles when
#I got started on Lojban was to try to stop the changes that made people
#feel that the language wasn't worth putting effort into learning because it
#continually required relearning.  It seems that the non-Central leaders of
#the community don't value this principle much anymore, or at least don't
#feel that it will seriously affect peoples' motivation to learn.

My understand was that the baseline began in 1997 with the publication
of the Book.
Part of the baseline began in 1994 with the baselining of the gismu and the rafsi lists. The grammar and cmavo list were baselined in accordance with the publication of the reference grammar. The lexicon is re-baselined as a whole with the publication of the dictionary, but this is a weak baseline in that we welcome new lujvo and fu'ivla, and will tolerate usage evolutions of semantics of words. In baselining the reference grammar, it is not clear that there was intent to baseline what semantics pronouncements were embedded in the text beyond the de facto standardization that comes from following a prescriptive example. It is clear that the membership left some room to elucidate further on lexicon issues in writing the dictionary, so that the proposed examples and definitional rewrites that I've talked about are allowed, and indeed can override some things in the refgrammar if the latter are "errors", or vague (and probably anything that is entirely about semantics, though we have to tread carefully since the line is fuzzy). 


Let me spell out how I see things working.

1. There is in force a guarantee that the official definition of the language
will not change (except in as much as the dictionary will have some sort
of official force?).


And the textbook.


This guarantee is not permanent, but the majority of
the community is almost certainly sure to continue to want no further
official changes.
On the contrary, I think that the majority of the community will be very interested in seeing the official language description reflect the actual language when it has seen stabilized in actual use by skilled users. Just as Nick, while a fundamentalist about the baseline, does not want his 1991 writings to be taken as "good examples" in 2001, we will not want erroneous and unclear material in the 2nd edition reference grammar.
I think you are correct that the community will not welcome prescriptive changes that are not backed by thorough demonstration in unofficial usage during the baseline period. If I am leading any revision effort, I would expect to be extremely conservative with regard to changes, but not opposed to changes that clearly reflect the way the language has evolved. 


2.  A small but voluble section of the community cannot remain involved
in Lojban without debating design issues pertaining to areas in which the
current design is incomplete or broken, and striving to complete and mend
these areas.
Believe it or not, I don't think this is a problem. It is the dominance of the community by this section that has troubled me, as well as the personality conflicts that have occasionally erupted in the debates. 


3. In their usage, Lojbanists are free to ignore the fruits of those debates,
or they can let their usage be guided by them, or they can let their usage
be guided by others who heed the debates.


We agree.


Eventually usage will decide which dialect


or dialects


emerges from the melting pot, but for as long as
the baseline is in force it will always remain the case that any usage that
is in accordance with the baseline is licit Lojban.


I think that is understood.


#>As I see it, a lojbanist has essentially two options. One option is to
#>use the language in a way guided only by existing usage, by personal
#>inclination and by what is baselined. The other option is to persevere
#>with the methods that created the initial 25% of the language so as
#>to create the remaining (ge ka'e gi na ca'a) 75% of the language.
#
#I'm feeling like my methods are being strongly repudiated rather than
#persevered in, based on the arguments I am getting from people like Nick,
#who I strongly respect.

This is probably so, because no member of LLG opposed the baseline
when it was instituted, and all its vocal opponents from that time except
me vanished into lurk mode. But this summer has seen an astonishing
transformation in the culture. Whether it's simply because a new and
changed Nick returned, or whether its because some critical mass was
achieved, I don't know.
I think there are several factors, and that the energetic and productive Nick accelerated what was probably coming anyway at a time when there were other issues that needed attention. But I value the productivity more than I fear the conflict. 


Anyway, nobody at all has been arguing for official changes to the
baseline, so it seems to me that you can remain the guardian of the
baseline and of the programme for the organic growth of the language
without having to face opposition or conflict. The worst you have to face
is that the language is too incomplete for any but the most basic of basickest
pedagogical materials to be written.
I of course disagree with that incompleteness. I think that were I able to write examples and dialogs of the sort I think are needed, in the volume I think are needed, I would have had a textbook done a few years ago. The language described might have been somewhat different than the formal language you seek, but I think the language is done enough to write the book. 


#>The
#>options can't be reconciled, and neither should prevail over the
#>other in the entire community, and each party should accept the
#>activities of the other. As far as I can see, the only way in which
#>the respective activities of the two parties interfere with each
#>other is in potentially confusing newcomers, and this can be remedied
#>by acknowledging the two parties in introductory information about
#>the lojbo culture and by, if necessary, exiling the hardliners to a
#>separate and, possibly, unofficial forum.
#
#There is indeed the conflict between officialness and unofficialness.  I'd
#buy your approach if it did not seem like it would be trying to exile the
#top tier of skilled and active Lojbanists.

The conflict between the activities of this tier and the course that LLG
pledged itself to c. 1987-1997 are generally recognized and sympathized
with, and I don't remember any potential exilees objecting to the notion
on the various occasions it was mooted. Anyway, these conflicts seem
to be resolving themselves as the community outgrows a single list, and
much of the technical discussion looks set to move to jboske (as the
Elephant list), unless plans have changed.
If people were willing to downplay the debates until the Elephant is done, I would have little cause to complain. 


#The dilemma I'm faced with as leader is whether it is even possible for
#me to lead in a certain direction when so many of the most active users
#seem so hostile to the direction I am trying to lead.

I of course am delighted that you have failed to lead the community in
what I thought was the wrong direction. But there are now some hundreds
of Lojbanists without the time or inclination to make their voices heard,
and they need somebody to represent their interests, if Lojban is to be
more than a club for the few maniacs who manage to keep up with the
list. So maybe your role is not so much leader but president (not French
or US-style -- more Italian style), with a brief to attend to the interests of the 
whole community and ensure that the constitution is upheld.
I wish I were more knowledgeable about the differences in Euro-governments to really understand the comparisons. I probably have seen my job more as (an American's probably-faulty interpretation of) your prime minister system, with Cowan as minister of grammar, Nick as minister of level 0, Jorge as a sort of minister without portfolio, etc. (I guess you constitute the leader of the loyal opposition %^). I'm using the model that I've read that Churchill used to try to include the opposition insofar as was possible during the war so as to maximize national unity. If I succeed in Churchill-like statesmanship, then I think I should be satisfied. 


#The other problem I see, is that if all your hardlining is going to be
#worth something, it has to sooner or later cross the gap into the
#user-based community.  If you prescribe and no one is listening, are you
#any better off than if you had let usage decide?

I think different people will give different answers. Nick and pc would
probably say that it does matter whether 'prescription' affects usage,
and that it will probably fail to, but that the effort is still worthwhile in
terms of a kind of morality of the intellect. Jorge would probably say
that his usage requires the hardlining, and his usage is all he will
judge his efforts by. And I would say that it doesn't matter whether
'presciption' affects usage, because the value is in the design
itself and in the historically unique way that it is the product of
50 years of collaboration among many many individuals.
I think that however the prescription is written, it will affect usage if the people who write the prescription set forth and use the language as they have prescribed it. If you want the world to adopt your particular view of ce'u usages in abstractions, then writing the significant exemplary piece of Lojban text making use of ce'u as you wish will have more effect than all the lojbab pronouncements that could be made. Teaching new Lojbanists and commenting on their texts so as to encourage the usage you want is a second best way of doing so.
I agree that the historical level of collaboration will be important, but I also recognize what linguists think of artificial languages, and know that they will recognize our results as significant ONLY if the design becomes an arguably "living language" and thus tested in accordance with linguistic theories that generally tend to discard such artificial creations as inherently unlinguistic. 


#Yep.  And if the community chooses to debate rather than use, then a
#prediction made by Colin Fine years ago that this would be the ultimate
#fate, will have been proven right, even though until a couple months ago I
#was sure the trend was strongly the other way, and that usage of the
l#anguage was finally overcoming the historical tendency in the Loglan
#community to debate more than use (I'm thinking of the eruptions of pure
#usage in nuzban and the CVS site and all-Lojban web pages, as contrasted
#with the wiki which is more of a debate site.)

I think your impressions of two months ago will prove correct; even for those
who love to debate, debating whets the appetite to Use, rather as creating
recipes must whet the appetite to eat the food the recipe defines.


My appetite has been suffering for a long time.


This
applies even to me, though in my case there are also strong countervailing
factors. Admittedly, given that time is finite, time spent debating is time
that can't be spent using, but I don't believe that the equation is that crude.
No it isn't, but time spent now in debate, when it will surely be far more productive when we have the elephant, seems less productive. More importantly, usage seems to bring the community together, whereas debate tears it apart, and we could use a little bringing together right now. (One ulterior motive in this right now, BTW, is to show Nick that it CAN be brought together by usage, which might encourage him to budget just a little time to stay involved after his return to la sralo requires him to devote much more time to other pursuits. This means we need to get HIM to use some of his time to produce a few of those exemplary texts by which he has helped lead usage in the past.) 


(In my case, at the start of the summer I planned to spend a few hours
doing some bible translation -- just a couple of dozen verses -- and that
was to be the limit of my Lojban activity. In the end I didn't have time to
do it, but Lojban dominated my whole summer, and the language moved
along enormously during that time.)
I think the language moved along enormously primarily in having Nick write his lessons, and various people write their texts on CVS. The wiki has helped crystallize which issues are the important ones that really bother people, but I don't think that it helps solve them directly. The beginners list has shown that we have several people who want to learn the language and several capable of helping them. The one thing that has NOT advanced the language much (per unit time spent) has been the technical debates that seldom reached resolution on any issues, and usually involved the same people that debated the same or similar issues in prior years. 


#It is advice I'm inclined to take, since it seems to agree with what Nick
#is suggesting.  It doesn't fit well with my idea of a proper role of a
#leader, which requires me to stay in touch with all parts of the community
#I am trying to lead.  But I'll have to get by that, since per everyone's
#comments, I'm not being productive and maybe not even succeeding in staying
#in touch.

But if the community grows, then however it develops there will necessarily
come a point where there is too much going on for you to keep track of it
all. That's a sign of health.
Yep. My problem has been a sralo voice that was suggesting that Lojban Central had to pay attention and keep track of it all, and I had one partial breakdown at LogFest and another last week as it became clear that this was not only impossible, but not constructive. 


#You need to look at the stuff you posted several years ago.  You've
#improved much more than you recognize.

We've all improved. We understand the language much better than in the
old days. I think in the past quite a lot of my usage was intended to test
the language to destruction.

#John Cowan makes similar claims to
#you, about knowing the grammar but not the language, but at Logfest he also
#seemed to understand far more than he did a few years back.

I don't even know the grammar!
So you say. Yet I haven't noticed you making gross mistakes when you come up with examples. Your standard of "knowing the grammar" is probably higher than most fluent speakers would insist on, and maybe higher than most English professors would insist on with respect to "knowing the grammar" of English. Do many English professors claim to be able to describe the grammar and semantics of English more than 25% completely - yet the language is speakable and indeed communicative between many different cultures enough to threaten efforts for other international auxiliary languages. 

#>You'd make your point better if you could adduce people who speak the

#>language as well as Nick and Jorge but don't engage in debates.
#
#Goran, who Nick has identified as his superior in language skill but who
#never participated in any debates.  he just started using the language, and
#using it and using it.  (When he did so is about when Jorge started doing
#so as well).  Colin Fine has rarely participated in debates, but when he
#does he has been right in my book, and he has also shown high proficiency
#given far less time spent on actually doing so.

Okay, though if they were here now I suspect they would be chiming in
on debates.
Maybe, but Goran especially never did so, unless he did so entirely in Lojban. When last he was very active, he and Jorge and others maintained a daily conversation in language on this list amidst what was then a relative high in debate traffic. So much Lojban that I gave up trying to read it all for the first time, and he almost never posted in English. 


#I don't mind abdicating control (I don't think I've ever really been in
#control %^),

you have more than you think, and far more than anybody else. At least
over matters official.

#as long as it is not seen as abdicating leadership.  People
#still expect there to be a Lojban Central that can effectively speak for
#the community.

Quite so. In particular for the large majority that tends not to speak
for itself. As opposed to the small minority that speaks for itself
with glorious incessance.


We'll see if I can continue to serve that constituency adequately.

lojbab
--
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