From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Tue Dec 04 09:03:59 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_2); 4 Dec 2001 17:04:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 28660 invoked from network); 4 Dec 2001 13:18:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m4.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Dec 2001 13:18:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Dec 2001 13:18:55 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Tue, 4 Dec 2001 12:54:29 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 04 Dec 2001 13:32:39 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 13:32:08 +0000 To: thinkit8 , lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] thoughts on numerical language Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810630 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin >>> 12/03/01 05:23pm >>> #When trying to put together a binary-encoded language, I noticed=20 #some interesting things. Lojban serves as a great model, for one.=20=20 #I noticed some things became a lot easier--you don't have to worry=20 #about fitting things into human pronunciation. Depending on how=20 #compact you want it to be, there's a lot less compromises to be=20 #made. This becomes even more freeing (perhaps this is an extention=20 #of the hypothesis...maybe our vocal cords limit our thought). It's an essential feature of human language that the basic ingredients of phonological structure are independent of meaning and function; a language has one set of rules for defining valid phonological structures and another whooly separate set of rules governing their mapping to semanticosyntactic structures. So it should be possible to change the phonology -- which is what I assume you mean by binary-encoding -- without affecting syntax/semantics. Our vocal tract limits not what we can express, but only how quickly we can express it. --And.