Re: The design of Lojban

[Mark Vines <vinesm@wholefoods.com>]

la .andrus. cusku di'e

> Since Lojban is based on Loglan which was designed as a
> mechanism for testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which claims,
> basically, that people are limited in thought by the language
> in which they think,

la markl. spuda la .andrus. di'e

That's only one interpretation of the SWH.  A different
interpretation (which I was taught at university) says that
language influences _perception_.  Perhaps we can compromise
between thought & perception to say that language, according
to the SWH, influences consciousness.

Many of Whorf's beliefs about the influence of language on
consciousness have been revised or rejected by later linguists.
His comments about Hopi have been shown to apply more to
people who learn the language later in life, & for whom the
structure of Hopi is what-they-call "foregrounded", than to
native speakers of Hopi, for whom the same structure is
what-they-call "backgrounded".

Consider the word "underhanded" in English.  A native speaker
of English typically just glosses the word as "sneaky" or
"dishonest".  But an L2 English speaker may try to figure it
out:  Does it represent something being hidden under someone's
hand?  Does it represent a blow struck by the lower hand, when
a blow from the upper hand was expected?  Does the word
"underhanded" relate to the phrase "below the belt"?  Or to
the word "shorthanded"?  Or "shorthand"?  Or "underfoot"?  Or
"sidearm"?

The structure of the word "underhanded" is in the foreground
of the L2 speaker's awareness.  But that same structure is
in the background of the L1 speaker's awareness.  Whose
consciousness is more under the influence of that structure?
Whorf would have answered, "The L1 speaker."  Later linguists
would answer, "The L2 speaker."

More material on this can be found in the Lojban FTP Archive.

> it's natural to assume that Lojban is as clearly expressive as
> possible, so as to remove restrictions imposed by most natural
> languages and see what happens when people begin to _think_ in
> Lojban.  However, an equally valid way of testing the Sapir-
> Whorf hypothesis would be to put some odd, obscure restrictions
> in the language and see what effect they have on people's
> thought processes.

This IMO is a very, very insightful comment.

> I have been under the assumption (and have assumed that
> everybody else was also under the assumption) that Lojban tests
> the hypothesis only by lowering existing thought barriers in
> natural languages, not by raising new barriers, and so far I
> haven't seen any reason to change that assumption.  However,
> I'm throwing this out as food for thought, and am curious if
> anybody thinks/knows that my assumption is false.

This IMO is a very, very insightful question.  I don't know
whether Lojban was intended to raise such barriers.  I think
that it does raise some barriers while lowering others.

Do you imagine that you are interested in women?  In music?  In
logic?  In language?  Not so, according to Lojban grammar.  The
x1 place of {cinri} must be an _abstraction_.  This raises
something of a barrier IMO.  And there are other gismu whose
place structures raise similar barriers.  Don't try to think
about defending your country, or your property, in Lojban;
people can't defend anything in Lojban; only events can do
that, because the x1 place of {bandu} must be an _event_.

Perhaps someone, or some event, would care to defend Lojban
against this charge?

> Also, some specifics of Lojban:
>
> In English, "or" can mean either inclusive-or (and/or) or
> exclusive-or (either-or).  Is there an unambiguous separation
> of the two interpretations in Lojban?

Yes.

> In English, relationships are represented by (or are at least
> ambiguous with) ownership.  "My sister's husband" implies that
> my sister owns her husband, and also that I own my sister.  In
> Lojban is there a way to make references to relationship
> without implying ownership?

Yes.  You can leave it ambiguous in a tanru, or you can specify
the type of relationship with a cmavo, or with a selbri.

> I assume that Lojban has gender-neutral "pronouns."

Yes.

> Does it also have gender-specific ones, or must gender be
> specified only by using a gender-neutral one and then using a
> separate, explicit modifier to specify gender?

The latter.  Or you can use the other anaphoric resources of
Lojban to craft a different approach.

On the Lojban numerals:

> That's fine and good for me, since I naturally think in decimal
> and also use hexadecimal fairly often, and Lojban allows for
> both of these.  However, how are we ever to convince the Eskimos
> of Greenland to learn Lojban?  They use base 20.

I believe that Lojban has ways to use digits higher than F, but I
don't recall what they might be.

> Also, are there any _symbols_ beyond 0, 1, 2 ,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
> and 9 ?

I don't think so, but I'm not sure.

On ' vs. h:

> why not simply use the symbol h as being synonymous with the
> symbol ' and thus type comfortably ... ?

At least one lobypli has put a similar idea into practice.

co'omi'e markl.