Subject: Re: [lojban] bacrynandu drata

From: "Robert A. McIvor" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 20:52:12 -0400

At 14:43 -0400 29/6/00, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
>At 02:21 PM 06/29/2000 -0400, Robert A. McIvor wrote:
>>At 21:20 -0400 28/6/00, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
>> >A major thing we wanted to avoid was having the same tanru being used to
>> >make several different words having different meanings. JCB and TLI took
>> >the approach that the dictionary-makers would choose one correct form to be
>> >used by all; I chose instead to say that all forms were valid and
>> >synonymous.
>>
>> The last sentence is misleading. JCB, while having a strong
>>preference for the shorter form, for the reason you cite always agreed that
>>all forms were valid and synonymous.
>
>That was certainly not made clear when we discussed the matter in 1986,
>though he may simply have not made clear what he felt. He did not always
>have a strong preference for the shortest form then, either, still feeling
>that the Zipfean correlation with frequency of concept (as shown in Eaton)
>should be respected, and also favoring parallel structures even if they did
>not always result in the shortest form.

I took over the dictionary preparation immediately after the
separation, and it has always been clear to me that all well-constructed
forms are valid and synonymous. I thought that was clear even at the
time of our disagreement and was mentioned in his rebuttal to my criticism
in the Loglanist of that time (which I do not have handy). That doesn't
preclude
him having changed his mind in 1986 when I was not involved with TLI but
after I took over the dictionary that has been the case. In fact, the question
arose recently when Slavik preferred different versions of our closing
Jelhaisto,
and JCB assured him it was quite OK.

Sincerely,
Robert A. McIvor
([email-masked])