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Re: [lojban] Re: Are Natlang the best case for entropy in communication ?
Michael Turniansky, On 14/08/2012 18:16:
I am sorry you don't see my point. I will try to clarify. I never
said that the digits aren't maximally distinct (although in addition
to rei/re confusion, "pi" can easily be confused with bi (and to a
lesser extent, pa) in a noisy environment.) But you make two claims
above -- A) "[maximal distinctiveness] is a virtue, especially in
lexical domains where context is unlikely to be able to disambiguate,
such digits and letters" and B) "partial internal sameness enhances
learnability" These are contradictory claims. Which is the virtuous
one?
They're both virtues, but, as is often the case with virtues, not fully compatible. For the digits, I think Lojban is right to prioritize distinctiveness over learnability, tho something like {ki ke ka ko ku mi me ma mo mu} would also have worked equally well (i.e. not varying the consonant for every digit, and choosing very distinct consonants). Elsewhere, I think (as I said in my last msg) the pattern of keeping the consonant the same within paradigms and varying the vowel is a good one.
In original Loglan, the digits 0-9 were ni, ne, to, te, fo fe,
so, se, vo, ve, which directly addresses point B,but in lojban we
chose to chose A over B WITH REGARD TO DIGITS, and tout it in the CLL
with a direct call-out. In letters (and in many other selma'o) , on
the other hand, we chose option B, despite the fact that "letters" is
one of the places that you say A is better suited.
Sure: just as credit is due for the digit names, debit is duefor the letter names. I don't think that means CLL should keep shtoom about the credit for the digit names, tho.
And in fact, cmavo
space is so tight, confusion will always be a problem in noisy
environments ("Did he say "lo pa jatna cu morsi" or "lo ba jatna cu
morsi"?") The big answer is "So what? Nothing we can do about it to
satisfy all situations.
Of course there's something that can be done about it! Ensure that words that context will be least likely to be able to disambiguate have the more distinct forms. That minimizes the chances of mishearing.
Humans have evolved to deal with ambiguity in communication, inlcuding "ki'a/ke'o.
As I said in my last, when context doesn't disambiguate, the language changes.
So why draw attention to it in the CLL?" was my only point here.
Because it's a good design feature. It's an area of the language that doesn't need to be fixed.
--And.
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