Re: jvoste #3 (8/10)

[Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>]

To Logical Language Group respond I thus:

#I will agree that in general change in Lojban is only possible if someone
#believes in aproposal enough to frame it and shepherd it through debate
#in a structured but forceful and active manner to encourage people to adopt
#the proposal.  Such a person has to be willing to make changes in the proposal
#being shepherded, but must be enough of a believer that they keepthe idea
#going against inertia.  This takes a lot of work if there is no immediate
#consensus.  Nick has won a default consensus on his lujvo place structure
#proposals by doing an immnense amount of work, enough that I, as an opponent
#of early dictation of lujvo place struture patterns in stead of letting them
#be 'discovered' for a few years, could only stand aside.  His ideas may still
#not be accepted, but his writing of a detailed paper supporting his proposal
#and analyzing the entire set of lujvo means that counterproposals must
#be either a) equally comprehensive, or b) piecemeal showing that individual
#words can't work like he has proposed and then getting enough of these
#individuals to show that the imposed standard isn't good enough to enforce
#even as only a default.  I think the latter may indeed happen, but it will
#take a long time to build the langauge experience to make such a case.

Lojbab describes well the situation. If I may reflect on things: Jim Carter
started the ball with his solid belief in jvajvo; his belief is persistent,
but (meaning no disrespect, because Jim's idea is truly a good one) he did
not frame it in Lojbanic terms, nor did he take much care of the nitty-gritty
(that is, places other than the first); he didn't shepherd it through. I,
intrigued by the belenu-template of lujvo, did pick it up, thought it over,
formalised it, and went myself monomanic on it. I was ready to admit tuning;
as you'll have seen in the past few postings, I still am. Through brute force,
it does indeed seem I've established a stunned slience that can pass for
consensus :) . I'll admit that a lot of the lujvo in my list have a place
structure that can be criticised or is inconsistent (seljdadji comes to mind;
I used it to mean "wants someone in their religion", but it'd be more
consistent to define it as "wants to be in some religion"); the principles
I base my analysis on can be attacked, and the whole endeavour can come to
nought. I do note that people still make lujvo any old how :) , not paying
that much mind to my principles; I, in turn, sometimes ride roughshod over
those chosen structures. Quite often, though, the place structure I've arrived
at is clearly the only reasonable one (-gau springs to mind); and I do offer
some measure of order where there is no clearly defined alternative, where
place order could be completely arbitrary. I do have a case; and whatever
happens in lujvo (and I do suppose things will loosen up as things go), I
think the case is good enough that it will not be ignored.

But to push such reform, your case has to be pragmatic, it has to slot in
reasonably with what goes in already in the language, and it has to present
clear advantages over its competition. I leave it up to the reader to decide
how well this describes other proposals that have appeared on this list over
the years.



*******************************************************************************
 A freshman once observed to me:         Nick Nicholas am I, of Melbourne, Oz.
 On the edge of the Rubicon,             nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: nicxjo)
 men don't go fishing.                   CogSci and CompSci & wannabe Linguist.
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