Re: Some things about lojban

[Eric Tiedemann <cbmvax!uunet!cs.nyu.edu!est>]

	Date: Mon, 14 May 90 16:14:32 -0400 (EDT)
	From: Yary Richard Phillip Hluchan <yh0a+@andrew.cmu.edu>

	gismu are the basic words...

Kind of.  They're the basic substantives--similar in significance
to nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in English.

	that fit inside the places defined by the lujvo, right?

Nope.  The lujvo are abbreviated compunds of gismu.

	The mailing mentioned that there was some trouble with representing
	mathematical concepts, but there was no description of the current
	method.  

It's hard to get detailed information about the language questions
the Logical Language Group is pondering at any point in time.  I've tried.

	Could you mail me a copy of the math grammar?

I'll mail you the full grammar in a couple of days, but read on.

	One big problem that I remember- and it would take a lot of work to 
	fix-is lojban's use of the postfix grammar.  

It doesn't use postfix grammar.  As a matter of fact, it tends toward prefix 
and infix, but it's actually a fairly complex (more so than most programming 
languages) context-free grammar.  (BTW, as a one-time FORTH hacker, I'd
dispute your contention the postfix grammar strains human comprehension, but 
then, most people consider FORTH hackers to be certifiable.)

	If I remember correctly, the reason postfix was chosen was to 
	make machine interpretation easier, since most machines used a 
	stack-based architechture. However, today's machines don't need 
	to store data structures on a stack; stacks can be used but 
	they're no easier to represent than a binary tree, an array, or 
	a DAG.

Yes, some of us know about modern programming.  In fact, the current form of 
the lojban grammar is as input to YACC, a LALR(1) parser generator.  (If you 
need to learn how these things work, I'd recommend Aho, Sethi & Ullman's 
_Principles of Compiler Design_.  Kernighan & Pike's _The UNIX Programing 
Environment_ shows a little about how YACC is used.)  For *practical* 
purposes, lojban's grammar seems slightly beyond the abilities of YACC, 
which fact forces a hybridized approach to parsing.  LLG won't disclose 
details of the most advanced effort in this direction.

	I am sorry that I don't have the grammar rules here,
	with some concrete examples I'm sure I could make a more convincing
	argument.

I doubt it, but why don't we bring you up to speed.  The "OVERVIEW OF 
LOJBAN" has some basic information on lojban grammar.  The LLG (now 
snark!lojbab@uunet.uu.net) used to make this available in electronic form.  
*Someone* should send it to the planned languages mail-server, or to me, so 
it can be easily available again.  To get information about the mail-server, 
send a message with the single word "help" to:
langserv@ivory.cc.columbia.edu

I could also send you the ascii form of draft textbook lesson 1 (152K!), but 
please don't redistribute it; refer other curious people to me or the LLG.  
Both the YACC grammar and the draft textbook lessons should be considered 
already outdated.  Remember that it's a nascent, protean language you're 
looking at.

Feel free to ask further questions in private mail or send me messages for 
review before you post them to lojban-list.

-est