Subject: Re: literalism [was: Re: [lojban] Re: looking at arjlujv.txt

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 05:07:17 -0400

At 04:16 PM 10/19/2000 -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
>In a message dated 00-10-19 15:11:40 EDT, maikl! writes:
><< words that don't mean what they're supposed to mean. >>
>Whence this "supposed"? That is literalism at its worst.

Yes and no - it is literalism, but not its worst.

There seems to be nothing wrong in my mind with coming up with a fairly 
literal word for a concept, one which algorithmically generates the desired 
places using one of the standard conventions. That because *A* word for 
the concept, and it is one which "works" for a lot of people.

I also think that leaving out rafsi for cmavo that disambiguate the tanru 
meaning and make the place structure more algorithmically derivable will 
come to be left off from words of, say, more than 4 components, unless 
constructed to match a pattern of shorter lujvo that have those components.

If someone is inspired to produce a more kenning-like lujvo for a concept, 
one which is significantly shorter than this "natural" one, it might come 
to be used IF the short word does not suggest some other concept that 
differs. If we could imagine some other useful meaning for "blade hammer" 
than "axe", then I would understand Michael's complaint about a "word that 
doesn't mean what it is supposed to mean". I can't at the moment think of 
such a concept.

Back when I was still working on old Loglan, I coined hundreds of lujvo 
that added one term onto a gismu and thus conveyed some derived or 
restricted meaning that in English is a different word. These words will 
probably make it into the language too. They are not as literal as some 
now being made, but I doubt if many are artistically kenning-like.

>Words we construct
>mean what we construct them to mean and *that* is what they are *supposed* to
>do.

Yes, but most people are trying to construct words that mean what some 
English word means, and the natural result of such coining is a) a direct 
mapping between the two language and a legit complaint that Lojban is 
becoming "encoded English", b) while the "meaning" may be clear to an 
English speaker who sees the derivation in the dictionary, if the word does 
not follow any of the conventions, then it becomes a new gismu - one whose 
place structure must be completely memorized and not figured out. Since 
people find memorizing place structures to be undesirable and onerous, this 
leads to a negative reaction against words that don't follow one of the 
conventions; c) people from other native languages may not find the words 
quite as "obvious", and the words they coin will seem less natural to 
English speakers.

Since we imbued Lojban with the underlying standard that you don't make 
expressions that mean "what you want them to mean", but rather you make 
ones which you can get others to understand, this puts a pressure on 
wordmaking towards thinking of how the word will be looked at by others who 
have not seen it, and that is where the literalism comes from.

>To be sure, when they are constructed out of pre-existing pieces, we
>have some obligation to leave a trail from the parts to the whole,

And so far, those are the only kind that are being made.

>but there
>is not obligation to make that path fit someone's a priori rules about how
>that path should run. The scenic route often has a lot to say for it over a
>route along the section lines.

I am just as adamant that you are, that a word that makes it into the 
language that does not fit the conventions, remains in the language. But 
people aren't making such words because so far they are having little 
trouble being "literal".

Meanwhile people are thinking about what they want the words to mean - I 
have no problem with fu'ivla displacing "le'avla" for borrowing, and I am 
glad that we have disposed with all of TLI's conventions based on "mao" - a 
scientist of any kind is not a senmao (Lojban skezba) because s/he doesn't 
build a science out of materials or components. I'm also glad that we 
don't have "man-do" for "manning a ship" - you are fondly remembering the 
word for axe, while forgetting the atrocities that were coined "to mean 
what JCB wanted them to mean" with no thought for how they would be 
understood by others.

><<this distinction depends on
>having the longer, more accurate forms available for the same meanings.>>
>Whoa! If it has the same meaning, how is it more accurate?

I think we means to say "for the meaning of the intended English language 
word that is being translated".

>Come to that, even if it doesn't have the same meaning, how is it more 
>accurate?

It more accurately reflects, by conventional analysis, the English word 
meaning that is being translated.

>I suppose
>this means that having a short, snappy, intuitive way of saying something is
>OK, but only if we have a long form that corresponds strictly to a
>prerestricted set of rules also available to get to the same place. And, of
>course, we always do -- those kinds of tanru and lujvo are a dime-a-dozen and
>a machine (or a rough human equivalent) can grind them out. But they are not
>proper additions to the language (any more than strict versions of maikl's
>quirky Lojban sentences are creative or poetic).

Why aren't they "proper additions to the language"? If someone uses them, 
and they are understood (as they are more likely to be than the short 
ones), they work and will be one of the thousand flowers.

><<i can see a good case for, lojbanically, precision &
>clarity seeming more beautiful than imprecision...>>
>Me too. And that has what to do with the issue at hand? A good metaphor is
>not imprecise; it is often more accurate than a bad definition (i.e., most
>definitions as given and certainly most that fit into compounds)

You cited blade-hammer as a "good metaphor". Is there some longer metaphor 
that is more precise and definitional? Maybe "hammer ke cut-tool", but 
that is redundant since a hammer is a kind of tool already. So you might 
end up with "cut-hammer" which in my mind is just as good as "blade-hammer" 
for axe.

><<Now, this is really becoming a discussion about kennings. Kennings, i'll be
>the first to agree, are fascinating.>>
>I remember some remarks under the title "kennings" from a couple of years
>ago. Would you care to remind us what they are and how they fit in (and tell
>-- rather than remind -- the majority of the present company, who have joined
>since those days)?

That was Athelstan's work from back in 1990-1. Long couple of years %^)

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