Crosspost from comp.ai.nat-lang 1 of 2 - Comments???

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

The following is part 1 of 2:  postings about Lojban that have been on
comp.ai.nat-lang in the last few days

I would be interested in seeing anyone knowlegeable about NLP and
interested in Lojban post a reply directly and/or to Lojban List.  In
any case, I will collect and edit any responses to this posting into a
collective response for comp.ai.nat-lang (unless you indicate that you
do NOT want such reposting).

I may comment after others have had their say.

lojbab

|From: holmes@diamond.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
|Subject: The artificial language Loglan
|Date: Fri Jun 17 16:18:06 EDT 1994
|Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
|
|Is anyone on this group familiar with the artificial language Loglan
|(either Institute Loglan (the official version) or Lojban (the pirate
|version); they are essentially the same, and I really have no animus
|against the other flavor)?
|
|This seems like a natural venue to find people who know about it or who
|might be interested in finding out about it.
|
|Loglan is an artificial language with a YACC-parsable grammar which is
|intended to be spoken by human beings (but is (since parsable) a
|possible means for communicating with machines).  Its grammar is based
|(not quite perfectly) on first-order predicate logic.  My impression is
|that it _is_ potentially a member of the genus "natural language" (my
|impression is that people can and it is claimed that some have learned
|to speak it); in fact, it is relatively easy to learn -- I know grammar
|my self but don't have the patience to master vocabulary (by the way,
|not only the grammar but the phonology is mechanically analyzable; one
|can divide a stream of sounds into words unambiguously!)
|
|It has moderately good software support; a parser (from the level of
|phonology up to the level of sentence structure) and an on-line
|dictionary.  The latter is a new product which makes life much easier.
|(This remark applies only to Loglan proper; I don't know what software
|support Lojban has, though I'm sure they have a parser; if some one
|knows and can tell me, I'd be interested in hearing about it.
|
|My goal here is to find out if anyone out there knows something about
|Loglan (and has an opinion on it) as an AI vehicle or a laboratory or
|model for natural language processing.  If someone doesn't know about it
|and is curious, I'd be willing to answer questions about it or direct
|you to other people who know about it.
|
|If there are some fellow Loglanists (or Lojbanists) out there, hi!
|--
|The opinions expressed          |     --Sincerely,
|above are not the "official"    |     M. Randall Holmes
|opinions of any person          |     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
|or institution.                 |     holmes@math.idbsu.edu
|
|
|From: alelyuna@brahms.udel.edu (Robert Alelyunas)
|Subject: Re: The artificial language Loglan
|Date: Sun Jun 19 15:07:04 EDT 1994
|Organization: University of Delaware
|
|In article <HOLMES.94Jun17211806@diamond.idbsu.edu>,
|Randall Holmes <holmes@diamond.idbsu.edu> wrote:
|
|[snip]
|>This seems like a natural venue to find people who know about it or who
|>might be interested in finding out about it.
|>
|>Loglan is an artificial language with a YACC-parsable grammar which is
|>intended to be spoken by human beings (but is (since parsable) a
|>possible means for communicating with machines).  Its grammar is based
|>(not quite perfectly) on first-order predicate logic.  My impression
|>is that it _is_ potentially a member of the genus "natural language"
|>(my impression is that people can and it is claimed that some have
|>learned to speak it); in fact, it is relatively easy to learn
|[snip]
|>
|>It has moderately good software support; a parser (from the level of
|>phonology up to the level of sentence structure) and an on-line
|>dictionary.  The latter is a new product which makes life much easier.
|[snip]
|
|Quite interesting.  I remember a previous post about Lojban, and its
|potential for improved natural language processing.  I think this points
|out a popular misconception about what language is, and what makes it
|hard to process.  These comments also apply to "limited vocabulary"
|approaches, such as restricting English to 500 words.
|
|My opinion is that the complexity of language comes from the enormity of
|the class of things which can be _meant_, not the class of what can be
|said.  The class of things which can be _meant_ derives from the
|complexity of culture.  It sounds simple, but it is a 180 degree turn in
|viewpoint from the a priori assumption of many modern attempts at
|language.  Meaning flows from culture to language, not the other way
|around.
|
|
|What would this mean for artificial languages?  It means that people
|will want to express the same complex communications, with the nuances
|and the shading, they are used to.  If the means to do that is removed
|from traditional carriers of this information, then other carriers will
|be extended to do the duty.  Once English itself (and I'm sure other
|modern languages) had a limited vocabulary, and a very simple
|grammatical structure (thematic roles were marked directly by word
|inflections, you can't get much easier to parse than that).
|Descriptions were taken in the concrete, as examples of single events
|placed in time, not the abstractions we are so facile with today.
|
|Consider a piece of language like:
|
|  [In reference to Vikings]
|  "Their ships were long and narrow... On the sails were painted devices like 
|  the eagle or the wolf."
|
|This is really quite odd, a special use of language for a special
|purpose.  Note there is not a real ship discussed here, nor are we
|talking about "all" ships in the sense of logical ALL, perhaps we might
|use the modern notion of prototype to describe what this language is
|doing.  The point is, because people like to think this way, in terms of
|a concretized abstraction, the language allows the interpretation which
|should be obvious to all of us.  Similar language can allow a strictly
|concrete interpretation, like:
|
|  [In reference to Davis, a Viking]
|  "His ship was long and narrow... On the sail was painted a wolf."
|
|My guess is, although I haven't studied this, is that the concrete
|language was first historically, and because people wanted to express
|themselves this other way, they extended the concrete to abstract under
|certain situations by conventional usage.
|
|Then back to Lojban, even if a simple, parsable set of supposed meanings
|and rules is created, people are going to want to do the same complex
|things with the language, and will simply rely upon stricter contextual
|conventions; the net language processing task is equally difficult.
|You've just made one step shorter-- mapping from sentence to some
|logical form-- and made the truly difficult step longer-- mapping from
|logical form to purpose.
|
|The only really successful ways so far demonstrated in simplifying NLP
|involve restricting _domains_, which is actually a way to restrict
|possible purposes of the language.  So my guess is either Lojban will be
|frustrating and inferior to real languages, or equally hard to process.
|
|
|So those are two very different views-- one is to think of meaning as
|flowing outward from language into the culture, the other is to think of
|meaning as flowing from culture into language, that is, the language
|expresses exactly those distinctions people within the culture find
|relevant.
|
|