[lojban] degrees of conservatism

[Zefram <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>                                                    you have more
>sophistication in these areas than I was expecting.

I've been lurking for a while.  I've read through the English description
of the entire grammar, perused the BNF, and skimmed through the yacc.
I tend to retain a lot of what I read.

>The language is strongly divided between people who consider the
>current language definition sacrosanct and those who think that a clean
>definition is more important than sticking with the status quo.

My position on this: Lojban per se should be stable, in the sense that
existing sentences should not change meaning.  Subject to that constraint
it seems reasonable to fix unintended consequences of the current grammar
and implementation -- e.g., "zei" at the beginning of text is a ludicrous
edge case and should obviously be prohibited regardless of what a strict
reading of the grammar says.  It also seems reasonable to a small amount
of new stuff, where a need can reasonably be demonstrated (typically,
by an experimental cmavo being used by a wide range of speakers).

Outright changes should wait for son-of-Lojban.  Surely from the
experience we gain with Lojban we will learn many ways, not just one or
two, in which it could have been designed better.  When we have learned
how to design (every part of) a logical language, it will be time for
our descendants to design the next one.  I'm interested in speculating
on what will be in son-of-Lojban, but don't want to get carried away.

Incidentally, I see the "zoi si" issue as intermediate between these
two classes of change.  Changing the behaviour of erase operators would
affect current *spoken* usage, but not normal *written* usage, and so
would have very little impact on the existing corpus of Lojban text.
The suggestion I've seen of making a pause mandatory before cmevla and
allowing "la" syllables within cmevla is also in this category.  I think
this type of change could be justified by a clear benefit to speakers, and
(so you can gauge my conservatism) I'm very much undecided on whether the
"zoi si" thing provides a sufficiently large benefit to justify it.

-zefram