Subject: Re: RE:literalism

From: "Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 15:45:05 -0000

--- In [email-masked], pycyn@a... wrote:
 
> * Anyhow, general remark. Ultimately, if Lojban survives,
literalism has to 
> lose. * The vocabulary of Lojban has to expand beyond the 6000
concepts or so that are 
> encoded in the gismu in their various places. And there are only
three ways 
> to go: borrowing, creation, or metaphor (in the real -- not the
JCB/Lo??an -- 
> way). Literalism can't add to the semantic field; at best it can
reduce a 
> new concept to an old one, making it not new at all (that is what I
meant by 
> saying that literal tanru and lujvo don't add to the language -- of
course 
> they add words and text -- but not concepts, except as subsumed
under 
> existing ones). So, since creating new gismu is strengst verboten
(remember 
> all those WW2 prison movies?) and borrowing is hard and risky (and
vaguely 
> unlojbanic unless absolutely necessary) we will metaphor sooner or
later.  
> And I say the sooner the better -- when a good one comes along. 
And when it 
> does, don't carp at it, take it as the gift it is and rejoice.

Although pretty new to Lojban, I'm fighting on pycyn's side with all
my heart: total refrain from coining metaphoric tanru/lujvo 
and sticking to literalism means death (better: abortion) or - in the
best case - self-castration to Lojban! Look at the Chinese 
language and its linguistic power: with all its "concreteness" (this
being a main feature!), the words semantics are not at all sharp 
outlined but more or less blurred, the compounds not restricted to
e.g. the components (common) match but open and very free. 
This is because the words comprehension are indeed "pictures" (I'm
not at all referring to the characters!) rather than fenced-in 
linguistic concepts. And, the building of compounds (grammatical) is
quasi unrestricted (albeit subject to convention).

I like Lojban for its "gismu" and, most of all, the inventive way it
has "rafsi" in order to provide a powerful capability for coining 
*short* compounds.
I hate Lojban for the lujvo monsters I happened to see, hardly
pronounceable and understandable by humans because stuffed up with 
*grammatical correct* cmavo at the few remaining brivla's expense, 
seemingly created by grammar-freaks without intuition and 
ideas of the "real world's pictures". My prophecy: Follow this way
(of strict & constructivistic literalism) and Lojban will be a 
dead languages before ever having been born! There will be nothing
left to "rejoice" about. The "usage" (i.e. the non-usage) will be 
the proof!
Do not look toward German etc.! Expressions like (good old)
"Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" are a persiflage on
"real 
bad", very often bureaucratic/ridiculous German linguistic/social
features (still worse than the "Strengstens verboten!" you know 
from the lawn or office signs in post-WW2-Nazi-movies).

.aulun.