the art of running uphill: more on Lojban lujvo

[cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!nsn]

Lojbab writes one of those long edictish articles I have come to enjoy:
>Dave Cortesi writes:
>Finally, the assumption of starkly regular patterns of argument
>combining presumes something false as an assumption:  that the typical
>Lojban speaker is going to know exactly the complete place structure for
>every word.

A good point. One that does *not* invalidate {belenu} dikyjvo (see previous
posting for terminology), but which *does* mean that, after the third or
fourth place, things get murky - you really do have to sit down with pen and
paper. I think of having to sit down so for factitives, and shudder: what a
waste!

But this does accentuate the recurring observation of every newcomer to the
language: there are too many places out there in gismuland.

>>Take the negative. It necessarily implies that
>>/le cusku poi zbasu le jvovla ku goi ko'i/
>>has an obligation to provide that extra information. (I fault
>>Nick for not doing this in his recent Aesop postings.)

I've been talking factitive dikyjvo for the past half year. I won't be faulted
that easily :)

>But with Nick's stuff, for example, I am still going to try to guess
>what he means from context rather than from systematic rules.

Your right. If I felt the rules were giving you disastrously counterintuitive
place structs, I wouldn't use them. Admittedly, some coinages (like fuzysku
for to blame) do need a gentle nudge...

>>But to use a new-coined lujvo without supplying
>>a gloss should be at least bad manners, since it shows that ko'i is
>>speaking without regard to whether ko'a understands.

David, I think you're going to have to get used to it. A lot of the language
will be definition-during-conversation (like any attempt to express somewhat
abstract concepts); what you propose will be overboard.

Lojbab and David discuss the redundancy in obscolescene of lujvo pattern
alternatives;
>Nick has reported that Zamenhof's Esperanto is now seen as archaic - he
>uses words and phrasings that are no longer common or accepted.  He says
>that the first 'great' Esperanto poet (Kobe?) wrote stuff that abounds
>in word and grammar errors, but this has not diminished his stature.

Grabowski (whose translation of Pan Tadeus I was leafing through the other
night); his style can grow on you, but his language is not Esp as we know it,
and the second generation of poets took influence straight from Kalocsay.

But what is more important, and a *reality* in Esp (though the Espists might
not feel like admitting it), is what David hints at here:

>>What is worse, there could be contending usages that end in a draw, so
>>that there come to be entrenched stylistic "schools" of lujvo usage.

This is fact in Esperanto. The split has not occured on dikyjvo :), but on
other grammatical aspects - the three out-of-mainstream streams are respect-
ively anti-le'avla, manic-le'avla, and rigid-grammarians; and within mainstream
Esp itself, there is much variety. In Lojban, you'd better believe there'll
be schools of expression set up (aren't there already? Compare prose to appear
by Derzhanski, LeChevalier, and Carter), and these schools *might* even
stretch mutual intelligibility (I'm not saying whether it's desirable or what;
but be sure it will happen).

>This is only likely in a conlang that presumes that rules are supposed
>to govern lujvo.  I oppose dikyjvo PRECISELY because I don't want them
>set up as a standard by which other approaches are 'wrong'.

An admirable attitude to take, prudent for a person running a language. This
won't stop the fact that I, for one, will never accept the lujvo "banta'a"
for "to speak a language" (I'd go with banpi'o - mi banpi'o la lojban: mi
pilno la lojban noi bangu; or tavlypi'o - mi tavlypi'o la lojban. do - mi
pilno la lojban lenu mi tavla do - I speak lojban to you; or maybe crupi'o
- mi crupi'o la lojban. zo .ui - mi pilno la lojban lenu mi bacru zo .ui -
I speak Lojban in saying "Yay!". Note that the first was {be} flavour dikyjvo,
the second two {belenu}. Anyone blow up?)

>(I understand that Esp-o does have such schools, by the
>way, yet it doesn't seem to hurt the language.

Esp's a bad example. Espists get very emotional on the schisms in the midst.

>A second standardizing force will be the dictionary writers.

I personally think that the dictionary will be a flop, and that Lojban is a
language antithetic to dictionary dependence, the language being used so
word-creatively. Look to the Full Analytical Dictonary of Esp as an example
to avoid: Larousse superposed on Esp, or Oxford on Lojban, will not work.

>I think, though, that you will find far fewer areas of disagreement in
>Lojban word formation than in English word coining, and English is doing
>quite well, thank you.

Well, we'll see.

>I want to note before closing that, even with the most regular of rules,
>fully 90% of all Lojbanists will rarely if ever coin a lujvo.

You *hope*. For the first ten years of the language, everyone will be manically
coining. Probably ever later. That's what I reckon. Ten ways to say "feminism",
fifty for "fascism".

>The problems Dave and jimc ask about are real, but primarily so because
>we have no dictionary, no fluent speakers to set authoritative examples,
>no established processes and algorithms that make learning a language
>seem simpler than it really is while obscuring real understanding.  If
>you don't have the courage of the poet, it is probably too soon for you
>to learn Lojban just yet.

You think this situation will change soon? I don't.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia.  nsn@{munagin.ee|mullauna.cs}.mu.oz.au
"Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be this nation's
number one killer"      - Henry Gibson, Kentucky Fried Movie
_______________________________________________________________________________