From a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Fri Sep 27 17:44:40 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_4); 28 Sep 2002 00:44:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 55470 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2002 00:44:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2002 00:44:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 28 Sep 2002 00:44:40 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17v5lR-00059J-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 17:47:21 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17v5ks-00058z-00; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 17:46:46 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 27 Sep 2002 17:46:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailbox-15.st1.spray.net ([212.78.202.115]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17v5kp-00058k-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 27 Sep 2002 17:46:43 -0700 Received: from oemcomputer (host213-121-70-133.surfport24.v21.co.uk [213.121.70.133]) by mailbox-15.st1.spray.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E56420524 for ; Sat, 28 Sep 2002 02:43:29 +0200 (DST) To: Subject: [lojban] Re: interactions between tenses, other tenses, and NA Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 01:45:06 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20020928000703.GB30608@allusion.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 X-archive-position: 1658 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list From: "And Rosta" Reply-To: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=122260811 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Jordan DeLong > On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 12:42:40AM +0100, And Rosta wrote: > > John: > > > And Rosta scripsit: > > > > To me it seems one of the more naturalistic features of Lojban -- > > > > a quirky, exceptional, counterintuitive, unnecessary complication, > > > > of the sort natlangs are full of & Lojban is largely free of. > > > > > > What is alien is that a contradictory negation particle should be other > > > than at the beginning of the sentence. > > > > > > In Loglan, sentence-initial "no" served this function. IIRC, Lojbab > > > consciously moved it from the natural sentence-initial position to just > > > before the selbri "because it was more naturalistic". IMHO a mistake. > > > > As is obvious, I agree that the decision was a terrible mistake, but > > the idea that "it was more naturalistic" is fairly defensible, > > given that (a) some lects of English have it, and (b) quirkiness, > > exception-riddenness, counterintuiveness and unnecessary complication > > is highly characteristic of natlangs, as evidenced by the way that > > more accomplished naturalistic artlangers deliberately try to add > > it to their conlangs. > > There's nothing to prevent you from always saying "naku" or always > putting it at the front of the bridi. (That is, unless the fact > that you never seem to produce any lojban text could be considered > preventative.) My point, as always, is about good and bad design, not about infringements of my linguistic rights or unwelcomely chafing constraints on my usage. See http://nuzban.wiw.org/wiki/index.php?And%20Rosta in order to get a better understanding of the background to the technical debates on Lojban list. --And.