Subject: Re: [lojban] A revised ce'u proposal involving si'o (fwd)

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:49:16 -0700 (PDT)

A few further reactions:

cu'u la lojbab.

>A point I have been trying to stress whenever I say "let usage
>decide". Usage will not have decided while there are still only a handful
>of people competent enough at the easy stuff that they are willing to essay
>using the more complex or abstract ones. And I daresay there are a lot of
>people who might USE the language more if they could successfully pull
>themselves away from the endless arguments ABOUT the language.

I will say this again: The -ata/-ita controversy in Esperanto establishes
--- clearly, to me --- that when controversy arises in a conlang as to
what a construction means, the usual result is that people
simply avoid that construction. Usage decides *not* to use it. I can
already tell you that I'm now hesitant to use {ka} without {ce'u}; once
bitten, twice shy.

So I will continue not to have such great faith in some blind,
invisible-hand,
working-for-the-common-good-and-not-once-being-led-astray Usage. Usage
often works out in ways you don't expect. See soi vo'a.

And your last sentence is infuriating. If you didn't want people to spend
16 years debating the language, you should have forestalled that by giving
clearer definitions 16 years ago. And is absolutely right about the 25%:
you cannot protest this outcome. (And if you wanted Lojban to be only
about Sapir-Whorf and getting it speakable, and not about logical
quibbling and rigour, then I am yet again forced to ask And's question:
Why did you pick a logic-based conlang to start with? You could have
dispensed with all the logic quibbling, and still gotten your Sapir-Whorf
effects, if you'd worked with Laadan.)

And who precisely do you think *is* being held back from writing Lojban
masterpieces by grammatical quibbling? Me? And? pc? xod? maikyl.?
xorxes? That's an utterly empty claim (unless, of course, you believe in
quantity over quality. I don't think we'll learn more from 100 malglico
translations than one piece of solidly Lojbanic text, though.) I should
think a far more serious
problem is that there is relatively little comment on one another's
Lojban, when people do write. It was not so in '92; yes, the language is
better defined now --- but I don't think the need for quality control will
*ever* be over, or that *anyone*'s Lojban is going to be too good for
review. We all sure know mine isn't.

>Only in accord with some philosophies. Other philosophies can reconcile
>the irreconcilable.

If I want Newspeak, I know where to find it. :-)

>I refuse to negotiate meanings of Lojban words in English because I think
>it is impossible to do so, and probably undesirable to try (and
>unfortunately at this point I don't have time to do it by USING them in
>Lojban (talking about them in Lojban won't necessarily improve on talking
>about them in English).

If you don't want to take part in that venture, or lend it your approval,
that's your right. I have taken part in that venture, I have an opinion of
how {ka} and {si'o} works; and I'll see you in the marketplace of ideas.
The longer you don't use your version, of course, the less chance it has
of prevailing.

>>Once {ce'u} was introduced into the picture, he
>>contends, {ka} is about properties, not qualities.

>That is not what the cmavo list says, nor what the gismu list says when it
>refers to qualities and ka in the same place, and it is not a requirement
>of the *grammar* that ka be solely about ce'u. That is a usage issue; it
>can be left to usage.

The cmavo list and the gismu list don't say much of anything. Furthermore,
the cmavo list and the gismu list were written in ignorance of {ce'u};
*obviously* they don't speak of properties. The reference grammar steers
{ka} away from quality, and towards property, by implying that every {ka}
has a {ce'u}. This means, ipso facto, that the meaning of {ka} has
changed. You can disagree with this, and say that your understanding
of {ka} must remain --- and as a result, that {leka mi xendo} must still
mean "my kindness", since it can be taken as not having an implicit {ce'u}
in there at all.

A considerable body of Lojbanists now thinks you're wrong, however,
and that {ka}
now means something different to what it used to. You can resent and
reject being railroaded into anything; fine. Be prepared to lose this one
anyway, though; we now know that in some contexts, {ka} is property and
not quality, unequivocally (inasmuch as the terms mean anything distinct
at all); and to forestall the natural further assumption that it is
property *everywhere* is going to take you some work. Fiat may not make
you accept {ka} is always property; but fiat is also not going to make me
accept that {ka} isn't always property. And the usage of those who are
making that further assumption is now likely to stick around.

Btw, the notion that {ce'u} doesn't fit in {dicra} is, to put it mildly,
puzzling:

lenu mi tavla do cu dicra lenu do gunka kei leka ce'u xi pa toljundyri'a
do ce'u xi re

This is just a property with two slots, relating the interruptor and the
interruptee. This is no different to {simxu}.

(And before anyone starts rolling their eyes about the subscripts, how
else would you make sure the two ce'u are not coreferential?)

Are you saying interrupting qualities are *not* expressible as bridi
relating interruptor and interruptee? Again, a real counterexample, please,
not phantoms. If you're going to pass such a no-confidence
motion on the power of Lojban to express relations in the world, it had
better be a good one.

-- 
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breathing I REJECT {gumri}
[email-masked] (Lojban Wiki, Resurrected Gismu)