Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Re: Well I guess you do learn something new every day...

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 15:42:45 -0400

At 04:47 AM 8/9/01 -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
>Not going to partake in the latest And-Lojbab tiff, partly because of what
>I'm going to say in the next email, partly because I'm now conflicted
>between logicist and pragmaticist approaches to the language. But I can't
>let this pass without comment:
>
>[Lojbab]
> >>After you'd created 25% of a language, you wanted
> >>people to start using
> >>it right away, and believed they wouldn't if you
> >>carried on creating
> >>the remaining 75%. So you leave it up to others to
> >>collectively create
> >>the remaining 75%, while trying to insist that the
> >>first 25% remain
> >>unchanged. This is all clear.
>
> >It is quite unclear to me how people are able to
> >communicate effectively in
> >a language that you say is only 25% done.
>
>The rhetoric is flying fast here, but Lojbab's claim is, I'm afraid,
>bogus:
>
>(a) The misunderstanding between PC and xod that led to the Great
>Attitudinal Flamewar of 2001 was anything but evidence of people
>communicating effectively in the language. I am not being facetious here,
>either.

Given the number of times I've seen comparable misunderstandings of English 
sentences, English must only be 25% done, as well.

>(b) It is eminently clear to me how people are able to communicate
>effectively in a language only 25% done (although the numbers of course
>are inherently arbitrary, and 75% would be a lot less inflammatory.) They
>do so by glorking context, by relying on English-language models, and by
>being cooperative.

Note that using the context and being cooperative is part of the 
design. Not sure whether the Book says so, but I have said many times that 
the obligation is on the speaker to choose usages which the listener will 
understand given the context.

Note also that we CHOSE not to "design" the semantics

>Both Nora and xod were doing quite well in speaking
>Lojban at Logfest; both were also routinely dropping both "se" and "nu"
>--- but I still knew what was going on.

Umm, English speakers also make grammatical errors in casual conversation 
but are still understood. In any event, this speaks to their fluency and 
skill in the language, and not to whether the language design is complete.

>The reverse wasn't always true, I grant you. :-)

"reverse" ki'a

>There are gaps in the language, and everyone knows this.

No, everybody doesn't know this! There are things that no one has said, 
and that no one has tried to say. There is no particular evidence that 
there is anything that cannot be said with the existing language design, 
any more than there is similar evidence regarding the "design" of any other 
conlang or indeed any natlang.

>Writing *introductory* lessons alone seems to have unearthed three or four.

It unearthed questions about HOW to say something. But I haven't noticed 
any requirement coming from the lessons for any new design. And seems to 
be the one who is proposing new cmavo to add to the design.

>I
>think everyone now also knows how these gaps are going to get filled in;
>interminable bickering as before, but this time with some deliberate
>attempt to set any consensus into stone by recording it with the new
>computer tools we have. And abandoning the supplicatory model.

I never knew the supplicatory model existed, whatever it is.

It seems to me that the way consensus is set is the way that Jorge has 
threatened: by using the language the way you think it should be used, and 
leaving lojbab behind if he doesn't establish any alternatives in 
usage. Consensus in English language discussion during the baseline period 
is meaningless if it doesn't see usage.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
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