From cowan@xxxxx.xxxx.xxxx Tue Apr 20 06:49:40 1999
X-Digest-Num: 119
Message-ID: <44114.119.664.959273824@eGroups.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 09:49:40 -0400
From: John Cowan <cowan@xxxxx.xxxx.xxxx
Subject: Re: Planned languages

Robin Turner wrote:

> > I know very little about Lojban except that it is an offshoot of
> > Loglan which came about over a copyright dispute (perhaps in the
> > mid-1980s?). As I understand it some of those working with JCB
> > wanted to make it public domain, he wanted to retain legal
> > ownership, so the others claimed his copyright applied to the
> > individual words, not the structure of the language, which they had
> > helped develop.

Actually, it was JCB who made that claim; I have written documentation
of this.

> > I don't know about Lojban, but in Loglan it is a
> > two-place predicate, comparing X to Y (or ba to be, or da to de, to
> > use colloquial Loglan terms). Loglan predicates by default make
> > relative comparisons rather than absolute declarations. After all,
> > there are many different shades of blue and not quite so blue: so
> > "da blanu de" means that "da" (= it(1) ) is more blue than "de" (=
> > it(2) ). It is perfectly regular and common to omit trailing
> > arguments of a predicate, so "da blanu" means simply "it's blue".
> >
> 
> According to what you've just said, it means "It's bluer", which kind of
> obliges you to either fill in the missing argument or supply a default
> value in the definition.

In particular, it legitimizes saying that grass is "blanu", since
grass is undoubtedly bluer than, say, blood is. The Lojban definitions,
which allow but do not require specifications of color schemes
(HSB, RGB, etc.), illumination conditions, etc., don't have this
problem.

> >
> > Loglan structure requires (and presumably the same or something very
> > similar applies to Lojban) that leading predicates be expressed at
> > least by blank place holders, so as I understand it, one way to say
> > that an item currently under consideration is less than ultimately
> > blue, is *"Ba blanu de". (something, it doesn't matter what, is
> > more blue than it(2).) * I could be mistaken about the choices of
> > "ba" and "de", but the principle here is sound loglan.
> >
> 
> In Lojban, colours are one-place predicates. "da blanu" just menas that X
> is-blue by generally accepted atandards of blueness, not that it is bluer
> than something (though obviously there is a logical implication that a
> blue thing is bluer than a red thing). Since there are no sharp colour
> distinctions, we can read "da blanu" as "the colour of X approximates to
> prototypical BLUE". Of course, colour term vary across languages, but
> there seems to be substantial agreement on prototypes.

Note the following Loglan-Lojban mappings:

Loglan	Lojban
predicate variables	ba, be, bi	da, de, di
pronouns	da, de, di	ko'a, ko'e, ko'i

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan	cowan@ccil.org
You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn.
You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn.
Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)