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

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 23:21:14 -0400

At 04:49 PM 9/12/01 -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
>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.

It is quite possible that you are right, that no one will decide to use it, 
and it will disappear from active use in the language. Or no one but me 
might use it, if and when I get around to it, and then people will either 
tell me my usage is bogus or they will see what I intended and take 
advantage of a neat new feature.

On the other hand, if no one knows what si'o means including me (I 
certainly have an idea what I meant when I created it, but I'm damned if I 
can cough up examples on demand, since I can't do that very well for EASY 
stuff in the language or we might have MY textbook by now), then probably 
when someone wants to refer to an abstraction that doesn't seem to fit all 
the cemented in stone conventions you guys are establishing for the rest of 
the abstractors, and if it seems like the keyword "idea abstractor" fits, 
then they may decide to try it. And if it is understood, it will start to 
be used.

Meanwhile since I don't understand half of the arguments about ka and ce'u 
and du'u, I can hardly be expected to clarify what is different about my 
concept of these from yours in terms that you guys can understand. YOU are 
talking a language I never learned when you wax formal-logical (remember 
that I barely passed formal logic class 30 years ago, and have forgotten 
most of what little I knew then beyond truth tables, and lambda was never 
mentioned in that class, so far as I know).

>I can already tell you that I'm now hesitant to use {ka} without {ce'u}; once
>bitten, twice shy.

I understand. Someone who is extremely concerned about the logical aspects 
will tend to avoid those things that are poorly defined in terms of 
logic. Others with less concern will probably try them, and after some 
considerable time we might have enough usage that we'll clearly know how 
people are using the bloody thing, and then be able to formalize 
it. Surely Jorge's opinions on ka and kau would not have been formed 
without his trying to use the language and seeing what worked. Likewise 
your introduction of jai. And the lujvo-making conventions you pioneered 
came from your working out a couple thousand place structures. If you had 
refused to use lujvo because their place structures were poorly defined, 
there probably would be no significant Lojban use today.

>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.

Yes it does. I don't expect that usage will abide by my 
prescriptions. I'm not worried about it; I could almost say that I don't care.

I put in soi for use in reflexives that seemed like they would be 
excessively verbose otherwise. If you make it work so that reflexives are 
handled, then soi works. I doubt that my particular way of envisioning it 
is that critical to the language (or for that matter my way of envisioning 
much of anything that people find.

>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.

I assume you mean 12-13 years, but fine. If I could have given clearer 
definitions then, they would be written. I'm a human being, and had other 
things in my life besides Lojban; I still do. But people don't find most 
of my prose written back then especially enlightening anyway; other than 
the textbook (which was seen as "great" back then, but has seemed stodgy 
even to me for years) relatively little I wrote seems to be clear. Look 
how useless my Overview is these days without rewrite.

>And is absolutely right about the 25%: you cannot protest this outcome.

I am protesting the debate, because I think that time spent in debate takes 
time away from using the language for anyone with less energy to spend on 
it than you and others do (I am baffled how you have time to do it, add 
massively to the wiki which took me hours just to add a few things to a 
couple of pages without actually trying to read what everyone else has 
written, and update your lessons, all while supposedly no longer having 
much time for Lojban %^), and there isn't as much usage as there should be 
(from as many people). Now And may not intend to use the language. You 
and Jorge DO use the language as well as argue about it. I don't even have 
time to READ what you guys write in Lojban, much less respond, because of 
the flood of easier to read (if not to understand) debates, which somehow 
seem like they are important or you wouldn't be spending so much time on 
them when your Lojban time is so limited.

Now maybe I should set my priorities differently. But if I try to spend 
time using the language, then I won't know what you all are pontificating 
about, and will thus not produce much interaction on the great issues of 
the day, about which I would then remain ignorant.

>(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?

I didn't. It picked me. JCB designed Loglan, and I merely picked up the 
pieces when he drove the community apart. I decided that the concept of 
Loglan was important, and further that the community of Loglanists deserved 
to have the language JCB had given them to use as they saw fit (even after 
he tried to take it back). I personally am most intrigued by the idea of a 
"test bed for linguistics research" (is that a si'o example - damned if I 
know what would go in the places?), but Lojban has NEVER been about my 
interests. Rather it has been my compulsion to fill the gap and provide 
people with the language and let them use it as they will.

Remember that when I started, I knew nothing of linguistics, and wasn't all 
that interested in languages. It seems I still don't know enough to follow 
the esoterica you guys are arguing, though I've tried.

>You could have
>dispensed with all the logic quibbling, and still gotten your Sapir-Whorf
>effects, if you'd worked with Laadan.)

I didn't know Elgin then and I did know JCB. I was working for him and his 
project.

>And who precisely do you think *is* being held back from writing Lojban
>masterpieces by grammatical quibbling? Me? And? pc? xod? maikyl.?
>xorxes?

Everyone else who reads what the grandmasters of Lojban are writing about 
and think that they have to understand it in order to use Lojban. You've 
intimidated the beginners enough that they've split off a beginners list now.

>That's an utterly empty claim (unless, of course, you believe in
>quantity over quality.

Actually I do. The reason why you can argue so self-assuredly about Lojban 
design concepts is those couple of dozen translation efforts you made up to 
10 years ago. The reason Jorge is so good at the language is because he 
uses it constantly. Michael Helsem has produced gobs of Lojban, and the 
quality of it has surely improved over the years, since people can answer 
him without him translating it %^) Now all of you might be ashamed at your 
malglico (malspano?) writings from way back, but you wouldn't have your 
ideas on what is right and wrong with the language unless you had done 
them, and you wouldn't have the confidence to tell me I'm wrong (whether I 
am or not) unless you had used the language far more than me.

Yours is the voice of experience, Nick. And the same for the other names 
you mentioned. Give us 50 Lojbanists with that much experience, and some 
of the more obscure corners of the language will have been explored enough 
that people will know where they want to go with them. Give us 500 
Lojbanists who can speak the language as well as you and Jorge, and I won't 
need to care what people debate about, because the language will define 
itself, with no textbook or baseline required.

>I don't think we'll learn more from 100 malglico
>translations than one piece of solidly Lojbanic text, though.)

YOU learned from doing them. Jorge learned from doing them. So has 
everyone else who has learned the language to any level of skill.

>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.

In 1992, the debating took place in the process of reviewing others' 
writings, which was where such debate belonged since it had context. Now, 
no one has time for reviewing others' Lojban, because almost no one has 
time to even try to READ it. And debates take place without much context, 
so any linguistic feature that depends upon context is forced by 
hardliners into some kind of context-free semantic mold. I don't 
understand semantics without context, so I'm at a loss how to respond.

> >Only in accord with some philosophies. Other philosophies can reconcile
> >the irreconcilable.
>
>If I want Newspeak, I know where to find it. :-)

The point is that some of the features of the language were specifically 
put in to allow people metaphysical or metalinguistic talk, and talk from 
differing points of view. Lojban should be able to express Newspeak as 
well as anything else.

si'o was one of those things so added, and the metaphysics place of djuno 
was another. Now I may have bungled the job, and left holes where things 
are needed, or inserted features that no one will ever use. Given how 
little I am into such meta talk, I would be surprised otherwise.

> >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.

.oi The longer you guys debate, the longer it will be before I get a 
chance. Because as long as your debates pretend to be important, it seems 
that I have to pay attention to them.

Sometimes I'd love to be able to hang it all and go work on my 
long-postponed translation of parts of Burton's 1000 Nights and a 
Night. But I have too many other jobs to do, from the business of LLG, to 
the dictionary, to responding to queries, and enthusing about Lojban to the 
outside world, to trying to coordinate a network of volunteers that often 
defies coordination. I'd love to be able to read the Alice translation and 
all the rest of the Lojban that the community is writing.

> >>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}.

Which is funny since ce'u wasn't introduced until the refgrammar was 95% 
done. And I read and reviewed the book and think I understood most of it, 
without understanding ce'u a bit (at the time).

>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.

With no context "leka mi xendo" means NOTHING. In a sumti that demands a 
ce'u of any ka filling it, it presumably implies a ce'u in x2 using the 
ellipsis rules. In a sumti that doesn't demand a ce'u it is ambiguous 
without further context: "le ka mi xendo cu pluka do" or "mi pensi le si'o 
ka mi xendo" - sorry but I can't think of what a ce'u would add in either 
case. Likewise imagine your dicra example below with x1 left zo'e.

>A considerable body of Lojbanists now thinks you're wrong, however,
>and that {ka} now means something different to what it used to.

If they USE the language based on that understanding, then so be it.

>You can resent and reject being railroaded into anything; fine. Be 
>prepared to lose this one anyway, though;

I'm am prepared to lose any, and indeed EVERY, battle on usage. Long ago I 
realized that this language is not about me or my ideas or my desires. The 
language is NOT mine. But nor is it yours or anyone else's. My job is to 
speak for those who are not present in the debates, to make sure that the 
resulting language is usable to them when they start to try to do so.

>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.

If they do so, and no usage comes about that does not track with that 
assumption, then that is what will be. Do you think this would bother me?

>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?)

I have no problem with the subscripts. I understood it fine. But if you 
had a few more sumti in the x1 and x2 of dicra, I am not sure I would have 
known. If it had been

lenu mi tavla la djan cu dicra lenu do gunka tu'a le lojbo kei leka ce'u xi 
pa toljundyri'a do ce'u xi re

I don't know that it is so clear which ce'u means what.

And where are the ce'u in

loi nu do'o mutce casnu va'o la jboliste cu dicra lenu mi gunka kei le ka 
vo'a rinka lo dukse kalsa

?

>Are you saying interrupting qualities are *not* expressible as bridi
>relating interruptor and interruptee?

Only if you assume (which dicra does not) that there is an interruptor and 
an interruptee. If you look at the place structure of dicra, there is an 
interrupting event and an interrupted event. If one or the other is not 
agentive, then one of those two roles is not filled at all. And if the 
interruption occurs because of the event, rather than because of any 
individual role in that event, as in the above, I don't see how ce'u fits in.

>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.

If the above won't do, then I guess you don't get one (if this means I 
lose, then I guess I lose). I'm still trying to catch up with the last 100 
messages of the last 3 weeks that I haven't read, while finally getting my 
computers networked so that Nora can put her comments into your brochure 
and lessons (which she is working on while I write this) and have a way to 
send them to you since her modem has gone flaky. BTW, she says that you 
didn't grammar check your texts in the former. She just finished doing so 
for the first big translated chunk. I spent a couple hours just answering 
this one message WITHOUT copious example-thinking, which on some days would 
have been my full quotient of Lojban time.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org