From robin@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx Thu Apr 29 04:38:45 1999 X-Digest-Num: 127 Message-ID: <44114.127.746.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 14:38:45 +0300 From: Robin Turner On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 18:58:49 +0300, Robin Turner > skripted: > > >> and lojban. However, an euroclone loglang would certainly not be the > >> best to translate to oriental languages. > >> > > > >To be easily and unambiguously machine-readable, a Eoruclone auxlang would have > >to depart from Indo-European grammar so radically that it wouldn't be a > >Euroclone any more. > > For what I've read of DLT project (and they were experts on this), it > seems that necessary departure was not so "radical". Can you clarify? > > >I don't see major problems with Lojban semantics, since > >they tend to be more, rather than less specified than European natlangs. > > However, I think the semantic range of terms of a european-based lang > (eg. esperanto) fit very closely to those of the languages where those > terms are taken from. I doubt something similar can be said for > Lojban, which on its origins was designed to prove the Sapir-Wolf > hypothesis. > The Sapir-Whorf aspect of the project was less to force people to speak in a weird way (though I admit it does that sometimes) but to give the opportunity to express a lot more things in a lot more ways. If it's used for translation between Eurolangs (though why we should be so modest in our goals, I don't know) I imagine people using Lojban for this purpose would speak a fairly European "dialect" of Lojban. The language is flexible enough to allow you to move it a little closer to the natlang(s) of your choice without departing from "correct" Lojban practise. For example (gerku=dog; batci=bite mi=I) Anglo-Lojban mi pu se batci lo gerku Hispano-Lojban pu se batci lo gerku Sino-Lojban gerku batci Turko-Lojban fe lo gerku pu selbatci fa mi ;-) Actually Lojban has been criticised by some for having an English bias in its concepts - just can't please some people. I think the question is how well you expect people to know the IAL that is used in this project. Some with good Lojban would have no problems in expressing the concepts of any Eurolang they were familiar with, I think. It's getting it back that's a bit of a problem, but a reasonably large dictionary (so you don't have top work out every compound word from scratch) would probably do the trick, once usage has standardised use of compound words a bit more. > > >advantage Lojban has is that a grammatically correct sentence can only be > >parsed in one way, compared with natlangs (and probably most conlangs) which > >allow different parsings of the same sentence. For example > > > >Time flies like an arrow > >NP(N) VP{V, AdP(Ad, Art, N)} > >NP(N, N) VP(V, Art, N) > > (N, N)? > I cheated. The first noun is an adjectival noun. > > >V NP{N AdP(Ad, Art, N)} > > Yep. I even forsee another ones (correct me if I'm wrong): > > VP {V, N, AdP(Ad, Art, N)} > NP {Adj, N, AdP(Ad, Art, N)} > Yep, I was only thinking of complete sentences, but it could be an isolated phrase. > > >> I wonder couldn't Lojban parser be implemented to an already existant > >> multilingual translator so you can get proper translations Lojban -> > >> NL? > > > >I've no idea, but it doesn't sound too likely. I'm CCing this to the Lojban > >list, since this is where the computer wizards hang out. > > Thanks. I'm longing for a feedback CCing. If implementation were > possible, you could be the pioneers of a new profession: "MT > inputers". co'o mi'e robin.