Subject: Re: [lojban] Retraction, Part 1

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 20:21:13 -0400

At 03:46 PM 8/21/01 -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
>On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
> > At 03:47 AM 8/19/01 -0700, Nick Nicholas wrote:
> > I will say first that if nothing else, Nick's reemergence into active
> > Lojban use provides a much more productive environment for moving these
> > discussions along towards possible consensus.
>
>You have said this to me before privately, and I am no longer confident it
>is true. In particular with {ce'u}, there was an emerging consensus, and I
>got in the way of it because my understanding of {ka} was antiquated.

But that is just it. Because you have "gotten in the way", more and better 
thinking has been done, and whatever is decided will have been better 
thought out and justified.

>And while I still seek consensus, I am not confident I am now the 
>solidifier I may
>have once been. (It seems I did not used to be a "hardliner".)

I didn't say you would be a solidifier; I said that you would shake things 
up and move them along.

> > With Nick absent, I have
> > always felt that a big chunk of the usage community was going
> > unrepresented. I wish that Ivan and Goran also were participating
>
>I cannot agree with this either. While I or Ivan or Goran are absent, we
>forfeit any right to representation.

It has NOTHING to do with "right to representation". It has EVERYTHING to 
do with "what is right for the language". To not INSIST on getting the 
benefit of the experience of the most skilled users of the language, indeed 
to DRAG opinions out of you if necessary, would have denied the language 
the benefits of your accumulated and unmatched experience.

>And God bless Ivan, but if you think
>there are rankles between Lojbanists on the list now, I shudder to think
>what he'd kick up with half the stuff going on.

We and the language would be much the better for it. And no matter how 
much I might disagree with Ivan, you can bet that I would listen and learn.

> > It seems to me that the result of the Wiki is a side-channel
> > discussion that most on the list are not privy to.
>
>The Wiki is publically available at http://nuzban.wiw.org/wiki . "not
>privy to" is at best misleading.

Whether we could possibly read it, most people don't have time to read that 
and follow the list as well (I don't have time to follow the list as well 
as I would like).

> > Under prototypical semantics as I understand it, almost anything that is le
> > jipci can probably also be seen as lo jipci given enough context,
>
>Are you now saying that the "le ninmu" = "lo nanmu" (transvestite) example
>is inapplicable?

No. I am saying that the extreme form of prototypical semantics might lead 
to lo prenu being veridically the same as lo remna. I would *not* prefer 
this to happen with Lojban usage, but as I understand it (correct me if I'm 
wrong) prototypical semantics allows for metaphorical extensions (that is 
what we are doing in calling a Teddy Bear a cribe), and in Lojban we 
seemingly don't prohibit them so long as the place structure can be filled.

So somewhere in the evolution of the language, the bounds of the prototypes 
(between blanu and na'e blanu) will be settled, hopefully in a way that 
preserves some of the ideals of the language.

>Or are you saying that given enough context, a
>transvestite conventionally described as "le ninmu" can also be seen as
>"lo ninmu"?

I think I am saying that, yes.

> Given that I thought this was settled, I am surprised that
>"le jipci" applying to "lo jipci simsa" is controversial.

It isn't to me.

>... On the other hand, I now see in the refgramm that "le" is defined as
>+definite -veridical, and not as I remembered it, +/-definite -veridical.
>This now looks like a misconstrual on my part, again because of antiquated
>understanding of the language (previous teaching material, to my
>recollection, emphasised non-veridicality to the exclusion of
>definiteness.) So I will probably drop the
>illustration of non-veridicality completely (or at least try and factor
>the definiteness out of it.)

Ya got me. I'm not sure I could ever keep straight the definiteness and 
specific things, which indeed have been much discussed over the 
years. Probably an issue that I lost on %^)

> > Where I resist on the final sentence is the last 4 words "intended for
> > common use". I don't think people should be coining lujvo "for common
> > use", but rather should be coining lujvo for a specific contextual use. If
> > an existing lujvo works in other contexts, then it becomes MORE commonly in
> > use, but this is something that probably cannot be intended in advance.
>
>We continue to disagree with this. (We had a vociferous exchange on
>"mutmi'i" becoming standard in December, you might recall.) I think the
>Helsem-LeChevalier attitude to lujvo makes a dictionary pretty useless,
>myself (which is why Helsem doesn't even want a dictionary),

It makes a dictionary descriptive, and perhaps exemplary of how to do 
it. It provides a starting point for the novice who needs to look words 
up. However neither you nor I use the dictionary files when we write in 
Lojban, nor have we memorized any significant portion of the words. We 
coin the words we need as we go along or we recall words that have been 
used so much that they remain in our memory as fitting the concept. For 
some concepts there may therefore be multiple words. This is good. It 
means that Lojban will not end up as encoded English (a fate which I will 
fear for a long time to come).

>and is not what people want in practice.

It is not what beginners want, which is why we want to produce a 
dictionary. Skilled Lojbanists shouldn't need a dictionary that much.

>But this is a philosophical disagreement, so nothing will come of it.

It is still worth airing.

> > I can use ce'u in multiple modes, and believe I did use ce'u above
> > correctly by both others' standards and my own to specifically highlight
> > that the x1 place was being focused on. I think that most ce'u usage
> > either explicit or default has a clear place that is being filled in. But
> > when I talk about "ka melbi" meaning the abstraction "Beauty", I BELIEVE
> > that I am NOT focusing on any specific place, but rather could be inserting
> > ce'uxitu'o in each place of melbi, as well as in any
> > appropriate-for-context modal places.
>
>Can I ask you to be even more clear? Do you believe that every {ka}
>abstraction must have at least one {ce'u} in its place structure, though
>which one it is (including modal places) is left to pragmatics?
>
>If you do, well and good. If not, you are the only active Lojbanist left
>who has publically said he does --- though I now note pc being slightly
>slippery. :-)

I'm willing to accept pc's record formulation which I think would interpret 
my concept of ka as having a multiplicity of ce'u

>(I know you will say "what of Mark, Ivan,
>etc." I will say again, it's their responsibility to come forth. And like
>me, their recollection of the language will reflect its status in 1993,
>not its status in the Refgramm. {ce'u} is ultimately alien to all
>'Tweeners but xorxes, who was the only 'Tweener still around in 1997.)

"Responsibility" suggests that it is their obligation to seek us out, 
whereas the community NEEDS the experience of its experienced Lojbanists 
more than any Lojbanist needs the language or the community.

> > Remember that some of us haven't yet gotten that far. To the extent that
> > you wish the new book to set and add to standards for the language, you
> > will have to be prepared for it to take a while. Cowan's refgrammar
> > existed as draft chapters for 3 years before it was settled enough to be
> > published, and we STILL made a lot of last minute corrections and people
> > are still finding errata. Your ce'u chapters haven't existed more than a
> > couple of months.
>
>So that I understand this, there is a real possibility that it will take
>years rather than months for the content of the lessons to be reviewed and
>finalised. Yes?

I am not saying that >I< will insist on this; on the contrary, when you say 
it is done, it is. I am saying that the faster that the thing is called 
"done", the more likelihood that there will be undetected errata. At 
some point there is a tradeoff between endless review and saying that 
enough is enough. You have full editorial power to decide that point. But 
you have already discovered that not everyone has reviewed the thing and 
found all the issues which could be controversial. You can say that it is 
"our responsibility to come forward", but this is a community of 
volunteers, most of whom place Lojban rather lower on their lists than it 
would need to be in order to be responsive to your schedule. I'm perhaps 
the one most worthy of criticism on this, in that I have a formal 
responsibility to do my job (though I don't seem to be able to make enough 
time to do in part because new jobs seem to emerge faster than I can get 
rid of the old ones)

> > > But
> > >whether I'm vexed or not is not the point; the point is that this issue is
> > >not uncontroversial (indeed, it's almost uncontroversially wrong), and
> > >cannot be spoken of as it has been. The issue of filling {ce'u} places 
> will
> > >therefore not be raised in the lessons at all.
> > Good.
>
>So that you explicitly understand: Filling {ce'u} places is now regarded
>by the majority of active Lojbanists (including myself, reluctantly) as
>wrong.

I haven't followed the discussion well enough to have a firm opinion. In 
my opinion (and I think Nora's), usage will tell. There may be no place 
where filled ce'u places are appropriate, but I am not willing to say that 
there is no place and that no place will ever be found where they will be 
appropriate. For the nonce, I will defer to others' usage.

> > >It's now also
> > >looking like the second understanding interprets {le ka mi xendo} as "my
> > >property of being kind",
> > Without context specifying that I am focusing on any other place.
>
>The point is not the focus. The point is that the overwhelming consensus
>here is that {ce'u} places cannot be filled in with explicit sumti; so
>inasmuch as the expression "my property..." is meaningful at all
>("kindness, as predicated of me"), "le ka mi xendo" cannot translate it:
>it can only be a property of those to whom kindness is shown, or the
>standard of kindness, or whatever, but not of the person showing the
>kindness. In *any* syntactic context.

>In other words, {le ka mi xendo} is not an instance of {le ka ce'u xendo}.

I understand that as the position of the majority. I am not prepared to 
fight it, but will not concede that it will never be appropriate.

>This, I think you'll agree, breaks existing usage, because (a) {le ka mi
>xendo} is the naive translation of "my kindness", and (b) "my kindness" is
>plausibly taken as being a property of me.

I think existing usage has been all over the place, and this makes some of 
that usage incorrect. That does not bother me.

> > >and the first as "my being kind (to others)", read
> > >as a property of the others
> > That may likely be the most common interpretation IN CONTEXT where a
> > specific ce'u place is needed.
>
> >From your example, I think you're doing what I did when I attempted to
>make sense of the Refgramm's usage: where {ka} is subcategorised by the
>gismu (the gismu list says "insert ka here"), you focus on a particular
>place (ce'u is unfilled). But in the general case (x1, sumti tcita) you
>don't focus on
>a particular place, so ce'u is absent or irrelevant, and {le ka mi xendo}
>can still mean "my kindness" or whatever else.
>
>This means in the general case that {ka} is not an intension --- a
>property *of* something, ellipsed or not ---

In my opinion, ka is a property of the selbri or bridi depending on to what 
degree it is filled in.

I understand that this may not be what ka "should" be, merely that it is 
the way I look at the concept when I try to wax theoretical about it. When 
ka is being used to focus on the propert(ies) of one place of the bridi, 
then I understand and agree that ce'u is the appropriate usage.

>{le ka do xunre cu cnino mi}, it has now been claimed, falls in a similar
>category.
>
> > >and should have been {nu}, then a major shift has gone
> > >on in how {ka} is understood by a significant part of the community, 
> and we
> > >have serious consequences for the community.
> > There are no consequences unless people insist on consequences.
>
>This, lamentably, is true. I want this settled, because I want to say
>something coherent on {ka} for the lessons. You don't, for reasons we've
>all been through.

I have no problem with your saying something coherent about ka %^)

I may disagree with your coherent statement, but I long ago gave up the 
role of God in this project.

>So I await with interest your response when I write my new lesson
>subsection on {ka}. I cannot promise you'll like it.

I don't require that I like it.

> > And I say that the way to "fix" this is to use the language however you
> > choose, then write the lessons based on usage and not based on the
> > refgrammar, but then say up front that you are basing the teaching on
> > actual usage even where at times it may violate the refgrammar and then
> > indicating when you teach the specific item that you are not teaching in
> > accordance with the standard, but rather in accordance with usage. This
> > then leaves it to each new student to decide for themselves between the
> > standard and the usage, knowing that they differ. If they choose to follow
> > existing usage, then so be it.
>
>If I leave it to usage before now, I document your understanding of {ka},
>because that's how {ka} was used until people woke up to {ce'u}.
>
>If I leave it to usage from this point on, I document the majority
>understanding of {ka}, because people are now awake to {ce'u}.

As Jorge said, more or less, usage is what xorxes and xod and xelsem are 
writing NOW, not what lojbab wishes that he had time to write, or what I 
wrote 5 years ago.

>If I document the standard, the standard is inconsistent (but leans
>towards the latter.)
>
>If I document both approaches, I am airing dirty laundry in public. You're
>cool with that. I'm not. I have yielded before, but because the refgramm
>seriously leans towards regarding {ka} as an intension in all cases (and
>the refgramm author now says it always should, and didn't only because of
>confusion), I'm somewhat reluctant to. Once more, I solicit others'
>opinions.
>
>If I delete the subsection, then so be it. I'd much rather not.

I defer to your editorial judgement, as I promised I would. (Isn't 
absolute power invigorating!)

> > Put another way, I have in part fought for 2-3 years to keep some decisions
> > from being accepted because I knew intuitively that you as the most skilled
> > speaker of the language would disagree with them, even where I was not sure
> > what the right decision would be. You should be involved in decisions
> > about the future of the language, and so should Nora, and Goran and Ivan
> > and a whole bunch of others, and it simply is not possible in short order
> > for everyone to visit the site of controversy at the moment and make a
> > momentary decision that might be right or might be wrong.
>
>I explicitly repudiate this. If I am not active, I forfeit any right to
>decide anything.

I think I've responded to this already. Nothing to do with rights, but 
with the need for the benefit of your experience.

>And I
>repudiate the label of most skilled speaker, as I
>have already done, both because I think it is historically inaccurate, and
>because I think it counterproductive, given recent developments.

Repudiate it as you wish. It is the community's judgement and not yours 
that matters.

> > > This does not make sense to me. If {ce'u} is to be decided on by
> > > community consensus
> > Maybe it shouldn't be "decided", simply used.
>
>I will go one further. I will (at some point this year) go through all
>Lojban I have posted as 'texts', eliminate instances of {ka} with
>what I now understand to be filled {ce'u}, post on my website the new
>versions, and renounce my former usage. Because I will *not* have my
>former usage
>used as a datapoint in this. I fully accept I misunderstood what {ka} is
>about (because we all did, and the invention of {ce'u} effectively
>postdates my internalised usage), and I will not contribute to future such
>misunderstandings.

Your privilege, though I think it would be more effective if you wrote new 
material. You'll get better writings, and I think that the community 
weighs more recent good writings over older good writings. For all their 
seminal value, people do not hold up Athelstan's _Open Window_ translation 
or Ivan's _Story of the Stairs_ translations as "good Lojban". Indeed 
probably most have never read either.

>Anything more I say will be even more inflammatory, so I will stop here.

I don't feel especially burnt, nor surprised by anything you said. We are 
probably a lot closer than you think, though perhaps not in underlying 
philosophy as to why we are so. And I have no heartburn at possibly losing 
a battle, so long as I have spoken the argument as best I can.

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