Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: Why linguists might be interested in Lojban (was: RE: Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 08:30:24 -0400

At 08:57 PM 10/7/02 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>You: Lojban needs to go the Naturalist route in order to be interesting
>to linguists.
>Me: (A) Why does it need to be interesting to linguists?

That is the circular part.

>(B) It is more likely to interest linguists if it goes the Engineerist route.

I have only your word on this.

>If I remember rightly, the key purpose in question was to have a
>language that was 'whorfianly neutral', so that usage could then be
>examined to see if there were any whorfian interferences from the L1.

No. The original JCB purpose was to design a language which was "natural" 
in the critical regards, but which deviated from natural in one variable 
that was expected to have a significant Whorfian effect. Hence the 
"logical" grammar. He was decidedly hazy on what to do next.

By the time Lojban got started, he had more carefully formulated his 
understanding of Whorf (and he recorded this in the 4th edition of L1: 
http://www.loglan.org/Loglan1/chap7.html )

I would also read what I wrote in JL, which is on the website, to see how 
I've explained it in the past, when I was more able to focus on the topic 
than I can now.
http://www.lojban.org/files/why-lojban/whylojb.txt
http://www.lojban.org/files/why-lojban/swh.txt

You can read these for yourself, which is probably better than my trying to 
explain them (especially JCB's, since I realized immediately that JCB's 
test was bogus). However, JCB's formulation of the hypothesis as applied 
to language design, I choose to paraphrase as: "language constrains the 
thoughts of people using the language; therefore, the removal of 
constraints from a language should lead to detectable removal of 
constraints in the thoughts of people using the language". Lojban 
therefore is a combination of unique to the language constraints (e.g. the 
le/lo/loi etc. distinctions) and removal of constraints (many).

When actually engineering Lojban based on JCBs concept and general design, 
I sought to maximize these aspects, but I also came up with the idea of 
Lojban as a "linguistic test bed" and the corresponding concept of 
"experimental linguistics". If linguistic experimentation is possible, 
then "engelang"s are necessary - languages engineered as tools for testing 
linguistic ideas. But if the engineering is not followed up by actual 
usage, then the engelang is just engineering and not a language.

>But the Naturalist route wants to complete the creation process through usage,

Those aspects which are not explicitly engineered have to be completed some 
way, preferably in the most naturalistic way possible.

>in which case there is inevitably going to be massive L1
>interference, but not of an interesting sort, because it won't
>be counterposed to any defined whorfianly neutral grammar.

Sapir-Whorf testing pretty much requires that you are using L1 Lojbanists 
or at least Lojbanists who have learned the language as already established 
to the point of natural language standards of fluency.

> > >(1) is an irrelevance. If you're interested in a language with native
> > >speakers, you don't look to an invented language.
> >
> > Precisely. We need to overcome this prejudice by showing them that a
> > language without native speakers can still be linguistically
> > interesting. On the other hand, this takes LOTS of usage - Esperanto
> > levels or greater.
>
>Trying to see things from a linguist's perspective, why would lots of
>usage make a crucial difference?

Because to a linguist, it isn't demonstratively a language unless it is 
used linguistically. Anything engineered that is not subjected to the test 
of usage, is not "language".

>My answer would be that it's all very well designing an Engelang, but
>in order to understand its role as a benchmark for natural language,
>it has to be seen whether it can ever be spoken fluently.

More importantly, it is HOW it is spoken fluently that tells us whether the 
language as engineered really is a language. Those parts of Lojban that 
are designed but which never see usage (most of Mex so far, for example) 
are still merely engineering.

>(If it can,
>then we learn that natural language could be more 'perfect' but just
>doesn't need to be. If it can't, then we learn that the language
>faculty itself has some kind of constraints limiting linguistic
>perfectibility.)

The concept of linguistic perfectibility seems ill-formed to me. I don't 
even know what a perfect language would be.

>But the sort of usage relevant to this experiment
>would have to be usage that strives to apply the principle of "Say
>what you mean".

"what you mean" is ill-formed here as a concept. I understand it so as to mean:

"something which your listener will understand as meaning what you intended 
to communicate"
If your communication is vague, then the listener should understand it as 
correspondingly vague.

>The Naturalists' principle of "Say whatever you
>like, so long as you are understood (and don't violate any baselines)"
>would not tell us anything we didn't already know.

1. It tells you whether it is possible to communicate with understanding 
within the constraints of the baseline (which means that the engelang 
really is a lang, since the baseline defines what is engineered)

2. It fills in the gaps in the language design so that we have a complete 
language that can be learned as a language for experimental 
purposes. JCB's original "engineering" was so incomplete, that he reported 
that the users could not use it - it sort of just "rattled around in their 
brains" - there was not enough flesh on the design for the language to be 
spoken. We'e spent 40 years since then adding additional design so that it 
no longer rattles. But it seems impossible to construct a complete 
language, so at some point usage has to fill in the gaps.

> > >(2) is an objection raised by learners.
> >
> > It is also one that is raised by linguists who aren't much interested in
> > the "search for the ideal language" that is usually at the heart of the
> > fiddling.
>
>If any linguists have said "I would be interested in research on this
>invented language, so long as it wasn't undergoing fiddling", I'd be
>very interested to find out their reasons.

I think rather that they would say that they are only interested in 
language as it is actually used. The people fiddling aren't using, and 
what they produce, until it is used, is not language but ideology (i.e. a 
systematic development of ideas from premises).

> > >I may be wrong, but I suspect that these linguists are people who
> > >have had the generosity of spirit to take the trouble to explain to
> > >you why they and linguists in general are not interested in Lojban
> > >or invented lgs in general, but that they are not people who have
> > >said "yes, I or other linguists would be keen to do research on
> > >Lojban, if only it changed in the following ways...".
> >
> > Correct. I have to work on eliminating the negatives, and THEN I'll worry
> > about the positives. If we never get out of negative interest territory,
> > there is no sense worrying about the positives.
>
>I understand that you see your role as to try to realize the original
>goals of Loglan, rather than to question whether the goals were sensible
>or feasible.

Oh, I've questioned, all right. But I think the language has to be aimed 
at those goals or it is no longer part of the Loglan project. And my 
justification for what I did in the 80s in the face of JCB's wrath was that 
his project and its supporters deserved fulfillment, which he was no longer 
viably offering.

>But what I've been trying to say in these messages is this:
>* Reducing linguists' negative attitudes to Lojban is still going to
>leave a complete absence of positive interest.

Perhaps. But I HAVE had inklings of positive interest, when I've been on 
the stump (which I haven't been for years - we need to show a language in 
use to bother doing more than we have).

>* The Naturalist programme is likely to reduce the potential for
>positive interest.

Obviously arguable, since we are arguing it.

>* The Engineerist programme has the potential to be of interest to
>linguistics, and most of the putative objections to Lojban become
>irrelevant to Lojban as an Engineerist experiment.

But it isn't a human language until human beings speak it.

>Ergo:
>EITHER (A) Lojban should not set "being of research interest to linguists"
>as a criterion for success, [though it could still aim for the lesser goal
>of "trying (but not necessarily succeeding) to be of interest to
>linguists"]

I know of no other criterion for success in a language, other than "being 
used linguistically" or "being of interest to linguists" (the latter 
covering dead languages as well as living ones).

You haven't defined a different purpose for success of a language, that I 
can tell.

> > Ivan has mentioned Lojban in a paper also (but only as a footnote, IIRC),
> > and Nick earlier discussed Lojban in a paper in the machine translation 
> arena.
>
>I have encountered mention of Loglan, too. But the only case I know of
>of a nonlojlanist linguist independently investigating Lojlan is
>Alan Libert in his recent book. I haven't read it yet, but as its
>about a priori artificial languages, it doesn't count as the sort of
>research Lojlan is looking to incite.

At this point, I'll take anything.

Step 1: Lojban is interesting enough that linguists write about it
Step 2: Lojban attracts researchers with linguistic credentials, who 
therefore can get research funding to actually do direct research involving 
Lojban
Step 3: Lojban researchers start producing real science from such direct 
research.

We cannot expect more than incidental mention of Lojban until we get people 
willing to spend money and time doing Lojban research at more than the 
hobbyist level. We're also unlikely to get any major research results from 
the language so long as it wholly a spare time endeavor. The incidental 
mentions we've been getting serve to establish credibility that warrants 
serious expenditure, but is not the end in itself.

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