On Thursday, May 22, 2014 5:48:17 PM UTC-4, selpa'i wrote:
Usage and definitions are drifting further and further apart,It is interesting to read this. Yesterday, I was considering the nature of natural languages and wondering why they tend to be binary predicate systems (e.g. nominative-accusative). So I was thinking about the word `klama` and it's five slots. It became very clear to me that that last two sumti would be subject to natural drift because it would be easy to forget the order they are supposed to be in. So people would start to use them incorrectly. Yet others would still understood what was meant by context, so it wouldn't really matter. And I concluded that eventually it would most likely (d)evolve into a 4-slot gismu where the last sumti meant a more general "means of transportation".From there I played around with what a binary predicate Lojban might look like. It is quite possible actually, but it is a bit stilted in some respects. Consider if `klama` meant only that `x1-comes/goes-via-the-route-x2`. How then would one specify `to` and `from`? That would require an additional predicate that means `origin-x1-connects-to-destination-x2`, then you'd have to plug that construct into the `x2` slot of `klama`. Its a bit cumbersome and makes one wonder if there might be more streamlined ways of doing relative clauses. It really makes one wonder how natural languages are so good at it. (The answer of course is prepositions.) In any case, I determined that binary predication isn't *quite* Lojban's cup of tea.However, after some further exploration, I found that Lojban worked quite well using a ternary system --essentially adding the dative that some natural languages do support. (e.g. English "He gave her it.) Note that very very few natural languages support anything more the three objects --all other object's must be handled via subordinate clauses like prepositional phrases. For Lojban at least, three seems to be the magic number at which point the whole of the gimste starts to click.In your quest to reform the gimste, you might want to take this into consideration. I am not necessarily saying the 4th and 5th slots should be completely removed, but I do think it would at least be a worthwhile general principle to try to keep each gismu within that limit of three (vs the opposite inclination to fill all the slots up)..trans.--
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