From pycyn@aol.com Thu Jul 19 09:39:07 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 19 Jul 2001 16:39:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 15112 invoked from network); 19 Jul 2001 16:38:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 19 Jul 2001 16:38:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r09.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.105) by mta3 with SMTP; 19 Jul 2001 16:38:28 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r09.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v31.7.) id r.122.1e0073d (4233) for ; Thu, 19 Jul 2001 12:38:19 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <122.1e0073d.288866fa@aol.com> Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 12:38:18 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] Editorial comment To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_122.1e0073d.288866fa_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10531 From: pycyn@aol.com --part1_122.1e0073d.288866fa_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/18/2001 11:05:41 PM Central Daylight Time, nicholas@uci.edu writes: > My concern now is that, as is becoming obvious, the ref grammar is still > much too underspecified, so I would contend there is in fact a place for > lessons ranging *beyond* what is covered in there. A language in which > "John and I at least know what it's used for" can be said of *any* of > its constructions (let alone {fa'a}) is still, I'm afraid, not ready for > prime time. The kicker here is, most of these things *can* be cleaned up > and made ready for prime time, without redesign or tinkering, but simply > by someone strapping down the 'oracles' and documenting what has been > used or said on the mailing list (or in camera --- or in the oracles' own > minds.) (Whether this happens in lessons-format > or dictionary-format or reference-grammar-format is not really relevant, > as long as it's done.) I can't say > I'm confident that this will happen soon, though, and I won't be the one > to do it anyway. > While I share Nick's concern that unclarities and even full gaps be taken care of, I am less sure that they are as many or as bad as he thinks, but am more sure than he that the way to fix them does not necessarily lie through Lojban Central, if the aim is to preserve something that can be called a logical language. LC comes in, I am sure, in preserving the freedom from syntactic ambiguity, since it contains the master grammar tweaker. But on the record of the last dozen years or so, the logical side of thing gets short shrift when compared to any number of other considerations, not excluding whether LC can figure what is going on after a dozen explanation attempts. While I am not sure that the larger community would be more receptive (the evidence is not favorable, after all), there is more of a chance for logical maneuvers at least to be heard and tried if presented at large than if kept in LC. Now, in fact, most of the issues on hand at the moment are logical only in a very attentuated sense (do all the tenses fit within a single pattern or are there several different ones and, if the latter, what are they -- to which the first answer is pretty clearly that they do not all belong to a single pattern, but that is because they are not all tenses in the sense originally intended -- another case where logic lost out to something [God knows what] else). So the chances of destroying Lojban's vestigial claims to be a logical language (even the connection with the language of formal logic is pretty well gone) are slim. But still, I think trusting any decisions about the language to LC (which is, quite wisely, refusing to take it -- while making it hard for anyone else to) is not a course likely to lead to a happy result. --part1_122.1e0073d.288866fa_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/18/2001 11:05:41 PM Central Daylight Time,
nicholas@uci.edu writes:

My concern now is that, as is becoming obvious, the ref grammar is still
much too underspecified, so I would contend there is in fact a place for
lessons ranging *beyond* what is covered in there. A language in which
"John and I at least know what it's used for" can be said of *any* of
its constructions (let alone {fa'a}) is still, I'm afraid, not ready for
prime time. The kicker here is, most of these things *can* be cleaned up
and made ready for prime time, without redesign or tinkering, but simply
by someone strapping down the 'oracles' and documenting what has been
used or said on the mailing list (or in camera --- or in the oracles' own
minds.) (Whether this happens in lessons-format
or dictionary-format or reference-grammar-format is not really relevant,
as long as it's done.) I can't say
I'm confident that this will happen soon, though, and I won't be the one
to do it anyway.

While I share Nick's concern that unclarities and even full gaps be taken
care of, I am less sure that they are as many or as bad as he thinks, but am
more sure than he that the way to fix them does not necessarily lie through
Lojban Central, if the aim is to preserve something that can be called a
logical language. LC comes in, I am sure, in preserving the freedom from
syntactic ambiguity, since it contains the master grammar tweaker. But on
the record of the last dozen years or so, the logical side of thing gets
short shrift when compared to any number of other considerations, not
excluding whether LC can figure what is going on after a dozen explanation
attempts.
While I am not sure that the larger community would be more receptive (the
evidence is not favorable, after all), there is more of a chance for logical
maneuvers at least to be heard and tried if presented at large than if kept
in LC.
Now, in fact, most of the issues on hand at the moment are logical only in a
very attentuated sense (do all the tenses fit within a single pattern or are
there several different ones and, if the latter, what are they -- to which
the first answer is pretty clearly that they do not all belong to a single
pattern, but that is because they are not all tenses in the sense originally
intended -- another case where logic lost out to something [God knows what]
else). So the chances of destroying Lojban's vestigial claims to be a logical
language (even the connection with the language of formal logic is pretty
well gone) are slim. But still, I think trusting any decisions about the
language to LC (which is, quite wisely, refusing to take it -- while making
it hard for anyone else to) is not a course likely to lead to a happy result.
--part1_122.1e0073d.288866fa_boundary--