From pycyn@aol.com Fri Mar 02 12:12:04 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 2 Mar 2001 20:12:04 -0000 Received: (qmail 42842 invoked from network); 2 Mar 2001 20:12:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 2 Mar 2001 20:12:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-m06.mx.aol.com) (64.12.136.161) by mta2 with SMTP; 2 Mar 2001 20:12:03 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-m06.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v29.5.) id r.a2.10d141de (4250) for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2001 15:11:58 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 15:11:58 EST Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Meaningless talk To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_a2.10d141de.27d1588e_boundary" Content-Disposition: Inline X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10501 From: pycyn@aol.com --part1_a2.10d141de.27d1588e_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/2/2001 1:33:23 AM Central Standard Time, iad@MATH.BAS.BG writes: > Okay. What about _See Spot run_? It is one of the most opaque > constructions of Modern English; translating it into another lg > is no trivial matter. Try a few natlangs that you are familiar > with, and you'll see what I mean. > Good point, although I think the problem is more with the unclarity of the phrase than with its complexity. Are we to observe Spot, who is running, or the running of Spot or something about Spot's running (a quality or its quantity)? Each of these is relatively straightforward (Turkish counts to the contrary notwithstanding -- is this an unfamiliar construction in Turkish) but trying to cover all of them at once is a problem in some languages -- and certainly in Lojban. Happily, we get them all done by one good look. "See Spot run" was hyperbole, of course. Actually Lojban makes it relatively easy -- vocab aside -- to get through the First Reader and even the Second. This often instills a sense of achievement in the learner that leads them to leap to the College Freshman level. We used to hate first letters from people, since they usually contained a translation of some untranslatable piece, like the Bible or the Way-Power Classic or Alice, the former two from unidentified English translations. Not that I can talk: my third lesson with JCB in '77 was about "things in the room" and went immediately to sense-data and subatomic particles (or tried to) and my first writing was the Babel story. So, yes, we should try things just beyond our reach. But we should check them before we send them off. We can maybe allow careless error and the "but you can figure it out" excuse in spoken contexts or interactive writing on #lojban, but they don't go in written work, especially since both checkers seem to work OK (the MSDOS jbofihe doesn't like quotes that are not complete structures, but that is minor). Remember, the game here is not to convey information, something we can all still do better in English, but to convey information *in Lojban*. The excuse, "they can figure it out" thus doesn't hold if the figuring involves ungrammatical lojban or grammatical lojban that says something other than what you want to say -- or mislexed Lojban for that matter. As far as I can figure, one of the topic of discussion was whether langauage is langue or parole, the system of rules and items or the actual occasions of use. The usual answer is that it is parole primarily and langue is just a theory about that. But Lojban is different -- the langue is set and the parole is way too small to justify the lange, and, indeed, often goes contrary to it. But we reject the mistaken parole rather than correctin the langue to justify them. And, as long as lack of syntactic ambiguity is a goal, we will continue to do so. So, we can say that the aim of the game is to express what you mean in grammatical Lojban. The room for innovation in Lojban is not in creating new structures against the rules but in using structures in the rules to break mindsets. I think we are doing a bit of that now, though so far much of it has been cases of the surprise of the first use of a structure that the rules set up and in its intended sense, rather than a new use for an old structure, or a surprising new structure that the rules allow but had not already accounted for. But, a few examples from the problems with the thread, skipping those already noted ({ko} for {do}, say) for the most part. Most of these are from xod (unless marked otherwise), but I take that to be an accidental feature of this exchange, not a generalizable characteristic. xorxes: I supose the later {le nu ...} might be conditions under which something (unexpressed and not very clearly implied) is possible, but I put {fa} in front of all of them, as fitting the context better. In an exact discourse, this could obviously be a disaster, in effect reversing some claim. "Oy, the expriences are less than the typical opiner in the amount the paired necessity observes" Oy, indeed. Just opaque and I can't see what to do with it. xorxes says he understands but does not expatiate, alas. xorxes does a job on this but skip the point (irrelevant by the time he is done) that the intended meaning of {cu'u da} requires probably {poi se cusku da} or at least {pe cu'u da}, {cu'u} identifies the speaker but does not claim that he is a speaker (cf. its use to avoid quote/unquote in extended discourse reports). Does this say that we make a certain assertion just in case a certain condition is possible? Then we don't need the {be - be'o} but the conjunction is sentential (as the different subjects also require. Or do we assert a certain equivalence, which, because the subjects are still different, is probably still going to require sentential connectives but some other more complex gear as well to embed that connective in the {du'u} clause. The first is grammatically more likely, the second contentually. But, whether {ka'enai} denies {ka'e} or {smuni}, the whole does not seem to work well under either interpretation. "sporadically test the function and habitually test the sentence"? I think this is meant to be something like "give a non-traditional test to the function and a traditonal one to the sentence" {naltcaci cipra} and {tcaci cipra}, though I am not too clear what distinction is meant. xorxes: cpixunri pamoi? and not too clear even then, nor is {xuncpi}, though that is at least a bird. I'm not sure you can do this by definitional fiat and expect anyone to follow, nor is it clear that a concept is djuno-known (as opposed to slabu-known, say). the crucial point -- which I am not sure this makes -- seems to be {pe'i le si'o smuni cu srana lo zasti}, not that I would agree even with that. (I remember now why I do answers on Word rather than directly to the e-mail: aol tends to lose half-written e-mail when you go off to looks something up. This is the second run on this answer.) --part1_a2.10d141de.27d1588e_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/2/2001 1:33:23 AM Central Standard Time, iad@MATH.BAS.BG
writes:


Okay.  What about _See Spot run_?  It is one of the most opaque
constructions of Modern English; translating it into another lg
is no trivial matter.  Try a few natlangs that you are familiar
with, and you'll see what I mean.


Good point, although I think the problem is more with the unclarity of the
phrase than with its complexity.  Are we to observe Spot, who is running, or
the running of Spot or something about Spot's running (a quality or its
quantity)?  Each of these is relatively straightforward (Turkish counts to
the contrary notwithstanding -- is this an unfamiliar construction in
Turkish) but trying to cover all of them at once is a problem in some
languages -- and certainly in Lojban. Happily, we get them all done by one
good look.

"See Spot run" was hyperbole, of course.  Actually Lojban makes it relatively
easy -- vocab aside -- to get through the First Reader and even the Second.  
This often instills a sense of achievement in the learner that leads them to
leap to the College Freshman level.  We used to hate first letters from
people, since they usually contained a translation of some untranslatable
piece, like the Bible or the Way-Power Classic or Alice, the former two from
unidentified English translations.  Not that I can talk: my third lesson with
JCB in '77 was about "things in the room" and went immediately to sense-data
and subatomic particles (or tried to) and my first writing was the Babel
story.  

So, yes, we should try things just beyond our reach.  But we should check
them before we send them off.  We can maybe allow careless error and the "but
you can figure it out" excuse in spoken contexts or interactive writing on
#lojban, but they don't go in written work, especially since both checkers
seem to work OK (the MSDOS jbofihe doesn't like quotes that are not complete
structures, but that is minor).  Remember, the game here is not to convey
information, something we can all still do better in English, but to convey
information *in Lojban*.  The excuse, "they can figure it out" thus doesn't
hold if the figuring involves ungrammatical lojban or grammatical lojban that
says something other than what you want to say -- or mislexed Lojban for that
matter.  

As far as I can figure, one of the topic of discussion was whether langauage
is langue or parole, the system of rules and items or the actual occasions of
use.  The usual answer is that it is parole primarily and langue is just a
theory about that.  But Lojban is different -- the langue is set and the
parole is way too small to justify the lange, and, indeed, often goes
contrary to it.  But we reject the mistaken parole rather than correctin the
langue to justify them.  And, as long as lack of syntactic ambiguity is a
goal, we will continue to do so.  So, we can say that the aim of the game is
to express what you mean in grammatical Lojban.

The room for innovation in Lojban is not in creating new structures against
the rules but in using structures in the rules to break mindsets.  I think we
are doing a bit of that now, though so far much of it has been cases of the
surprise of the first use of  a structure that the rules set up and in its
intended sense, rather than a new use for an old structure, or a surprising
new structure that the rules allow but had not already accounted for.

But, a few examples from the problems with the thread, skipping those already
noted ({ko} for {do}, say) for the most part.  Most of these are from xod
(unless marked otherwise), but I take that to be an accidental feature of
this exchange, not a generalizable characteristic.  

xorxes:
<i ie cumki fa le nu pilno loinalsatci valsi le nu cusku
lo smucau i ji'a cumki le nu pilno vy le nu cusku lo smucfu
i ji'a cumki le nu pilno loi satcytce valsi le nu cusku
lo smucau i frili>
I supose the later {le nu ...} might be conditions under which something
(unexpressed and not very clearly implied) is possible, but I put {fa} in
front of all of them, as fitting the context better.  In an exact discourse,
this could obviously be a disaster, in effect reversing some claim.

<oi le se lifri cu mleca lo'e jinvi le ni le remei sarcu cu zgana>
"Oy, the expriences are less than the typical opiner in the amount the paired
necessity observes"  Oy, indeed.  Just opaque and I can't see what to do with
it. xorxes says he understands but does not expatiate, alas.

<i ro bu'a cu'u da zo'u di cipra le ka fatci lebu'a>
xorxes does a job on this but skip the point (irrelevant by the time he is
done) that the intended meaning of {cu'u da} requires probably {poi se cusku
da} or at least {pe cu'u da}, {cu'u} identifies the speaker but does not
claim that he is a speaker (cf. its use to avoid quote/unquote in extended
discourse reports).

<ma'a xusra be le du'u
de ka'enai smuni be'o jo cumki fa le du'u de ka'e smuni fi ko'e>
Does this say that we make a certain assertion just in case a certain
condition is possible? Then we don't need the {be - be'o} but the conjunction
is sentential (as the different subjects also require.  Or do we assert a
certain equivalence, which, because the subjects are still different, is
probably still going to require sentential connectives but some other more
complex gear as well to embed that connective in the {du'u} clause.  The
first is grammatically more likely, the second contentually.  But, whether
{ka'enai} denies {ka'e} or {smuni}, the whole does not seem to work well
under either interpretation.

<ta'enai cipra lo fancu no'u mu'a zo mlatu i ta'ecipra
lo nu fancu pilno no'u mu'a lu ta mlatu li'u >
"sporadically test the function and habitually test the sentence"?  I think
this is meant to be something like  "give a non-traditional test to the
function and a traditonal one to the sentence" {naltcaci cipra} and {tcaci
cipra}, though I am not too clear what distinction is meant.

xorxes:
<lo cipnxirundi pamei >
cpixunri pamoi? and not too clear even then, nor is {xuncpi}, though that is
at least a bird.

<ca'e le si'o smuni cu seldjuno fi le zasti>
I'm not sure you can do this by definitional fiat and expect anyone to
follow, nor is it clear that a concept is djuno-known (as opposed to
slabu-known, say).  the crucial point -- which I am not sure this makes --
seems to be {pe'i le si'o smuni cu srana lo zasti}, not that I would agree
even with that.

(I remember now why I do answers on Word rather than directly to the e-mail:
aol tends to lose half-written e-mail when you go off to looks something up.  
This is the second run on this answer.) --part1_a2.10d141de.27d1588e_boundary--