Place structures

["61510::GILSON" <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!gilson!61510.decnet>]

Haldane in exile <HALDANE%UFPINE.BITNET@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU> writes:


>Art Protin sez:
>>Folks,
>>    I hate to have to say this so strongly, (and Bob please don't
>>be offended,) BUT I find to be totally without merit, bogus, the
>>comments offered in
>>Bob sez:
>> If I write
>>>
>>>     2 +
>>>
>>> you know there is something missing...you yearn for another number, to
>>> complete the expression.
>>>
>>> The same with a lojban expression:
>>>
>>>     mi klama
>>>     I  come/go
>>>
>>> is incomplete.  In lojban, you yearn for a destination, departure,
>>> path, and means.
>>[rest deleted for brevity]
>>
>>While I can easily accept that we need a far different model to
>>think about lojban than the one we use for thinking about English,
>>I reject any suggestion that
>>
>>     mi klama
>>
>>is in any way incomplete.  The image that I construct in my mind
>>is small corresponding to the small amount of data provided, and
>>it has "hooks" where I might attach additional data like the
>destination.
>
>Then obviously you haven't learned to *think* in lojban. :)  Perhaps the phrase
>"is not fully completed" instead of "incomplete" might make more sense here.
>You may not yearn for them, but you know there are unanswered items, because
>the "hooks" are far more explicit in lojban than English.
>
>>Other dialog/monolog is required to elevate that "slot" to any greater
>>prominence (I hope I spelled that right, I am on a new system and I have not
>>yet found all the good tools).  If that piece of the whole picture becomes
 both
>>important and unspecified, I will inquire as I would for any other data I need
>>to satisfy my view of that picture.
>
Bingo!!  The unladen "hooks" are _meant_ to be filled, or questioned.  Lojban
>is a dialog-based language, rather than a monolog-based language like Standard
>Written English.  I can see where a speaker of English "sees" "I come" as a
>fullty completed sentence with no unknown information, but all speakers will
>know the speaker of "mi klama" could've said something but *consciously
>didn't*.  Hmmm, imagine what that means for Lojbanistani politicians.....
>
>>    I see no reason to provide any members of any relation (predicate)
>>that are not relavent to the discourse.  That the provided members
>>can/do have the designated role in some instance of the relation is
>>all that the language can express.  We might, with sufficient
>>dialog and experience, be relatively certain that we know exactly
>                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^              ^^^^^^^
>>which instance is being described, but there can be no guarantees.
>>(This is not a property of just lojban but of human communication
>>in general.)
>
>But *I* might see a need for me to know something you said, so I will ask.
>But, it is the assumption of accurate and inaccurate assumptions that lojban
>brings to the front of its conversation mode.  By knowing there is unspecified
>data, and emphasizing it, we change the form of communication.  Rather than
>pontificiation and counter-pontification discourse, we should have fully
>interactive dialog discourse.
>

Now I think I finally see what disturbs me. Whenever a gismu has its place
structures baselined, the decision has been made for all time what are the
essential components. If the place structures for "xunre" and "blanu" do not
include "under illumination xn" (n = whatever) then the consensus of lojbanists
who accepted it do not -- to _my_ eyes -- accept the reality of the fact that
perceived colors depend on the light source. An apple may be black under the
blue-violet lights used to cause fluorescence, yellow under a sodium-vapor lamp,
and red under sunlight. On the other hand, since "klama" has the 5 places that
were given previously, I am _forced_ to imply that those places are important
enough to think about, _even_ if (by using "fa" type particles or "zo'e") I
omit those places. Sorry, but to me this is a _serious_ weakness. It still
allows Lojban as a SWH test -- in fact may very well make it even _more_ useful
as a SWH test, but it makes Lojban very much less useful as a means of communi-
cation.

                                                    Bruce