Subject: Re: [lojban] optional punctuation

From: Michal Wallace <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 12:54:25 -0500 (CDT)

co'i rodo

I have some thoughts about all this punctuation business... There are
already quoting words and so forth.. if we replace them with
punctuation, are the punctuation marks pronounced like the word, or is
it represented by inflection?

I'm interested in lojban from a computer perspective.. I want to learn
to speak it, but I also want to be able to parse it.. I don't see any
problem lexing/pronouncing "123" as "pareci" or "<<" and ">>" as "li"
and "li'u".. but I think if you allow it, you should define it
specifically. For example, perhaps a name followed by a ":" should
always indicate a speaker and what they say, as in a play, and it
should be read as if it were the words "(li'u) .i XYZ cusku li .. "

The symbol ( " ) is awful hard to parse in its english meaning because
of nesting issues. You'd basically have to disallow (alice said,
"betty said, 'xxx'") .. (you can't even use alternating "/' because '
is so common) maybe "[ .. ]" would work though, but if you're going to
use a 2 chars, you might as well stick with chevrons ("<<" and ">>")

---

For questions and so forth, sticking a ? at the end (with or without
an upside down ? at the front).. what is that supposed to indicate? A
change in inflection? That seems awfully culture-specific to me.

.. I guess I see two ways of doing this that make sense.

Scheme A is to let you put as much punctuation as you like in a
sentence just for visual markup, but you still have to have all the
right words. This might also include *bold* or LARGE or _italic_ text
for emphasis.. but then again, you shouldn't need to emphasize one
word over another because what your saying should be clear already.

Then again, it's helpful for the eyes.. In programming languages,
the following is unambiguous:

1 + 2 * 3 + 8 / 4

It might mean different things depeneding on the language, but the
order of opeations is set in stone. However, the best practice would
be to mark it up so that i's clear to anyone reading it, whether they 
know the language or not:

1 + (2 * 3) + (8 / 4) 

In lojban, we might "mark up" special words:

fred cusku li" co'i "li'u
xu go'i?

but:

fred cusku?

would still NOT be a question... The ? would just be a mistake,
ignored by a parser and not pronounced out loud.

The idea is to only use punctuation for redundancy. That means less
work on the reader, without changing the meaning. Using punctuation
like this can also CHANGE the meaning, which would defeat the point of
scheme A.

Scheme B is to define symbols for certain selma'o.. For example:

--- => ni'o

:) => ui
:/ => oi
:( =>
:| => 
:O => 

= => du
1 => pa
+ => su'i

?: => xu
? => ma
?? => mo (or vice versa, as long as it's specific..)

So when you see:

?: la fred. cu cusku

it's read:

xu la fred. cu cusku

It doesn't change anything.. Just adds a visual cue that you're asking
a question, much like two people who share the same native language
might use an auditory cue..

Another varition along these lines might be a prolog style syntax:

?: cusku(la fred)

which could be read exactly the same as above, whereas:

cusku(la fred., _, la .uilmas.)

would be read as:

la fred. cu cusku fi la .uilmas.

or any other sentence that represents the same surface structure.

---

I don't really have an opinion on the particular introductory text in question:

http://ptolemy.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/lojbanbrochure/lessons/intro.html

I don't know enough lojban to understand what it's saying.. I mean,
when I first saw it, I realized it's repeating the english words above
(the address gives it away), but since I didn't know how to pronounce
lojban words or know anything about the syntax, it all looked like
gibberish to me, and I skipped it. I didn't even notice the
punctuation..

Looking at it now, I still don't know enough to understand what it's
saying without comparing the words above.. It doesn't look like the
punctuation is marking out the same things at all. The parentheses
seem to be in different places. I don't get it.

Maybe if the two were side by side.. ?

Cheers,

- Michal
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