From lojbab@lojban.org Tue Apr 24 22:32:22 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_2); 25 Apr 2001 05:32:22 -0000 Received: (qmail 20443 invoked from network); 25 Apr 2001 05:32:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 25 Apr 2001 05:32:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-5.cais.net) (205.252.14.75) by mta3 with SMTP; 25 Apr 2001 05:32:21 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (72.dynamic.cais.com [207.226.56.72]) by stmpy-5.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f3P5WKh57853 for ; Wed, 25 Apr 2001 01:32:20 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010425013038.00acb100@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 01:35:30 -0400 To: Subject: Re: web dictionary development (was: Re: [lojban] NickFest 2) In-Reply-To: References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010424161239.00ad1100@127.0.0.1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 11:02 PM 04/24/2001 -0600, Jay Kominek wrote: >I think a couple of people looking over and discussing the construction >of a lujvo is as good as grabbing it from a single person's in-context >usage. The difference is the classic dictionary writer's tension between a dictionary being descriptive or prescriptive. Dictionaries are supposed to describe actual usage, not theoretical possibilities. The first Lojban dictionary will necessarily have considerable prescriptive force (for the 5 year period at least), but in the long term it too must become descriptive. A Lojban word that is talked about in English is not really Lojban (on the other hand, many of the words in the lujvo file are precisely words that were merely talked about rather than used - I used no filtering to process only Lojban words that appeared in Lojban text, since I don't have an automatic way to recognize text as being Lojban). lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org 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