From arntrich@stud.ntnu.no Sun Aug 12 10:48:51 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arntrich@stud.ntnu.no X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_1); 12 Aug 2001 17:48:51 -0000 Received: (qmail 51379 invoked from network); 12 Aug 2001 17:48:50 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 12 Aug 2001 17:48:50 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO brev.stud.ntnu.no) (129.241.56.70) by mta2 with SMTP; 12 Aug 2001 17:48:50 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by brev.stud.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47928804B for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:49 +0200 (CEST) Received: from jeeves.stud.ntnu.no (jeeves [129.241.56.14]) by brev.stud.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id A920E8041 for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:48 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost (arntrich@localhost) by jeeves.stud.ntnu.no (8.10.0.Beta12/8.10.0.Beta12) with ESMTP id f7CHmm528485 for ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:48 +0200 (MEST) X-Authentication-Warning: jeeves.stud.ntnu.no: arntrich owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 19:48:48 +0200 (MEST) To: Subject: Chomskyan universals and Lojban Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-10 From: Arnt Richard Johansen It has been suggested -- among others by the person, whose name escapes me, who reviewed _the Complete Lojban Language_ in _Journal of Linguistics_ -- that the Lojban prescription may run counter to the so-called "linguistic universals". Linguistic universals, in case you want to know, are the properties that the Chomskyan school of linguistics believe to be common to all languages -- and, in fact, hardwired into the design of the human brain. Are any of you familiar with these theories? Can you name any universal that Lojban violates? Can Lojban be used as a test of whether "Mentalese" exists? If the current theory of language acquisition holds true, what would the difference be between Lojban as we speak it, and Lojban as used by a person who has acquired it as a first language from someone who speaks Lojban as we speak it? -- mu'o mi'e tsali