Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 10:44:05 -0400 (EDT)

And Rosta scripsit:

> As I've said to you before, I can't make any sense of the
> descriptive/prescriptive dichotomy when it is applied to an invented
> language that is still in the process of coming into being. So while
> I agree that Lojban is not like a natlang, it follows, pe'i, that the
> descriptive/prescriptive distinction is largely vacuous.

I don't grasp what you don't understand. From the viewpoint of Lojban
Central looking outwards, it can do one of two things: say how people
should use Lojban, or say how (in its experience) people do actually use
Lojban. For Lojban Central you can substitute any other single point.

I can say descriptively "And's translation of 'The People United' uses
ka'enai". Or I can say prescriptively, "And ought not to use ka'enai,
for the Lojban grammar does not allow it."

This is really no different from the case of "'Different' is commonly
completed by 'than'" vs. "'Different than' is an obnoxious barbarism."

I also don't see what the completion of the enterprise has to do with it.
The more incomplete the language definition, the fewer the number of
prescriptive statements available. I cannot say "One ought to use 'fyt'
to mean '1' in Piat", because I don't know the Piat numerals.

-- 
John Cowan <[email-masked]>
http://www.ccil.org/~cowan http://www.reutershealth.com
Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes,
Set anz totz pleinz ad ested in Espagnes.