From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Oct 10 11:17:02 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_2_0); 10 Oct 2002 18:17:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 49875 invoked from network); 10 Oct 2002 16:07:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 10 Oct 2002 16:07:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 10 Oct 2002 16:07:01 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17zftn-0004t1-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 09:10:55 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17zfqw-0004sD-00; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 09:07:58 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 10 Oct 2002 09:07:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cs6668125-184.austin.rr.com ([66.68.125.184] ident=root) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17zfqi-0004s0-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 09:07:44 -0700 Received: from cs6668125-184.austin.rr.com (asdf@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by cs6668125-184.austin.rr.com (8.12.3/8.12.3) with ESMTP id g9AGB0GZ067950 for ; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 11:11:00 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from fracture@cs6668125-184.austin.rr.com) Received: (from fracture@localhost) by cs6668125-184.austin.rr.com (8.12.3/8.12.3/Submit) id g9AGB0ZS067949 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 11:11:00 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 11:11:00 -0500 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Usage deciding (was: RE: Re: [Announcement] The Alice Translation Has Moved And Changed Message-ID: <20021010161059.GA67659@allusion.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="huq684BweRXVnRxX" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-archive-position: 2112 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: fracture@allusion.net Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list X-eGroups-From: Jordan DeLong From: Jordan DeLong Reply-To: fracture@allusion.net X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out --huq684BweRXVnRxX Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Oct 10, 2002 at 02:18:34PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote: > la lojbab cusku di'e > >I have long been afraid that Jorge's using an innovation might become > >accepted as a viable standard merely because he has used it a lot. >=20 > Do you have a concrete example that causes you such concern? Why > would it be a problem that something I use becomes accepted? Are > you similarly afraid of innovations by other users of the language? I think his worry is due to the large amount of (mostly ;P) lojban text comes from you (.io.i'e). But there are plenty of "innovations" which are only used by one person each; none of them (yours included) have serious risk of being adopted as a part of the language, thankfully. See below about usage. > > "Let > >usage decide" was meant to refer to collective usage by many people in m= any > >contexts, so that the usage itself becomes normative rather than > >exceptional. >=20 > {ka'enai} would seem to be the best example of that, not only > against CLL but also against the baselined grammar, and yet used > by many people in many contexts. ka'enai is not an example of that. There are not enough speakers of lojban for usage to decide *anything*. Changing CAhA to allow NAI deliberately is (a few) *people* deciding, not usage deciding. So CAhA+NAI remains bad grammar (what's so bad about saying "na'eka'e" anyway) for now (I suppose after the baseline CAhA+NAI may be adopted). In my view it is impossible for any single lojbanist to produce enough text that their usage of any language feature would be "decidedly" correct. The idea of usage deciding requires natural language evolution, which is not possible for lojban yet since we have so few speakers, and no speakers at the needed skill level. So Lojbab needn't worry that your changes to the language will be adopted (that is, unless you start writing learning materials ;P) > >Jorge is free to advocate his ideas through usage, but has to > >be prepared for people noticing and objecting. >=20 > I do my best to be prepared. Some people tend to object more > than to notice, though. Many objections arise only after I bring > the issue up myself in discussions. This is likely because for most lojbanists (myself included), sitting down and reading more than a page or so of text is still quite difficult (which is the whole reason that usage is not *yet* able to decide anything). But don't worry, I'll do my best to complain if I see you deliberately abusing something, though ;) (barring obvious standing complaints on lack of dots, and that weird --- stuff for dialogue). mu'o --=20 Jordan DeLong - fracture@allusion.net lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u sei la mark. tuen. cusku --huq684BweRXVnRxX Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE9paaTDrrilS51AZ8RAv+1AKDPLWHgpfH8DDtbmw654AU462ExyACgt0Fq xsr9u6yuaBCFqi0qIgKzdoM= =oPOX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --huq684BweRXVnRxX--