Re: ro broda/ro lo broda

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>>The era of 5 years has not yet begun.
>
>djer>
>I guess that depends on who you are.  Lojbab is our president so I will
>quote him:
>
>lojbab>
>There will be a final grammar rebaselining, probably when Cowan's refgrammar
>is done, to incorporate those of his grammar proposals that are in the
>refgrammar but not reflected in the baseline.  At the moment, the
>baselined version of the grammar includes all changes through 2.33, with
>2.34 and 2.35 approved.  2.36-2.40 are pending, and in most cases have
>not even been seen by all relevant parties, but most are likely to be
>approved, because in general Cowan has demonstarted a sufficient degree
>of conservatism couple with mastery of the grammar, that he usually gets
>his way.  I believe those changes would include some variety of 2 or 3 of
>Jorge's X proposals.


Alas, that statement is still true, thouigh I think the proposals are now up
to 2.42, with one change rejected.  The final rebaselining still has not taken
 place because Cowan's refgrammar is not yet done.  Only AFTER then will we
officially start the 5 year baseline (I'm really hoping that this will be
done and ratified at Logfest 96 in August.)

So Cowan is right in that the era of 5 years has not begun.  But even so,
teh changes that have been considered and made in the last 2 years are so
minor that almost no text is affected.

 >I think the time is past for changes to be made by JCB, Lojbab, Cowan
>or by cabal. Most of the changes so made have lead to obsessive
>questioning by thinking lojbanists because they sense a problem in
>these areas.

I think the only changes that receive serious consideration are those that
would make Cowan's job writing the refgrammar easier.  We gave a little
excess respect to Jorge's proposals at least partly because he claims to have
informally proposed them a long time ago (when they were ignored) and to
have used most of them successfully in his many on-line writings in the last
2 years.  Even so, only half of them have survived the gauntlet, and they
are still quite minor changes - essentially expansions of the current YACC
rules.  A couple of changes have been due to errors made in implementing
earlier changes,a nd that risk of mis implementation is one reason not
to consider changes this late.

>> pc says the latter means there are prenu, so you're also making the
>> {ro prenu/ro lo prenu} distinction do existential import too. Is that
>> what you really want?
>djan>
>I don't care about existential import (but feel free to try to convince me
>that I should).
>
>djer>
>
>I wish that I could convince you that E(x) baseline(x). And thanks for
>all the wonderful and brilliant grammar papers, without which we would
>have nothing to talk about changing.

As I have indicated elsewhere, the question of what ro broda or ci broda
is equivalent to is a semantics question and not a grammar question - it does
not affect the YACC grammar and hence is not part of any baseline yet
established.  There will probably be something said about the matter in the
refgrammar though, which will make it semi-baselined by the simple act of
publishing the book, in that people have been far more reluctant to change
things once they have seen print.

The "democratic" mode of change that will exist after the baseline will
be that people can use it the langauge,a nd if they misuse the language and
are understood, the deviation may come to be acceptable Lojban.  Such misuses
may include actual improvements, as well as illogical garbage.  Hopefully
the commitment of most active users of the language to retaining its intended
character will mean that illogical changes that crop up in usage will be
rejected by the community either naturally, or upon  the illogic being pointed
out to them.  That process will be democratic in that anyone can make a
change, anyone else can accept or reject it, and anyone can try to convince
other Lojbanists that a usage that is catching on violates the spirit of the
language and should be rejected.  In 5 years we'll see if the changes that
have survived leave the language intact and make one final attempt to ensure
that the language is on a "true" path, but the procedures and real effect of
 that post-5 year abnalysis are indeterminate.  As someone pointed out, the
Esperanto Academy is NOT able to invoke changes or resolutions of disputes as
to what the language is any longer.  this will undoubtedly be true of Lojban
as well, once the community reaches some level of robustness.

lojbab