Re: Linguistics journals

[HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Chris Bogart wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, HACKER G N wrote:
> > > {ci}, and {tu'a} in them.  In other words, maybe Lojan could be useful in
> > > the same way math notation or normal predicate calculus are useful.
> >
> > Don't you think linguists/logicians already HAVE such notational schemes
> > in place, which are accepted generally within their own communities? Why
> > would they want to learn a WHOLE NEW LANGUAGE just so they can re-invent
> > the wheel? :)
>
> Well if they've already done all this, why are *we* reinventing the
> wheel?

Ha, ha, ha! That's the most insightful question I've seen anyone ask on
this list. Why indeed? I don't know.

> We could just take their scheme, add vocabulary words and a
> method of pronouncing the symbols.

I thought that's what we were doing, in effect, with Lojban's being
based on predicate logic. Most of the logic of Lojban comes from W.V.O
Quine's work Word and Object (1960), and most of the work on negation
comes from Larry Horn's work The Natural History of Negation.

> I thought what we were doing was more
> ambitious than what was already available.

I don't think so. I think it's very derivative of stuff that's already out
there.

> I'd be interested in hearing
> more about some of these notational schemes.

I'd think they were pretty boring to get into, actually. My knowledge of
same is not complete, but I know that linguists use all kinds of tree
structures, diagrams and various forms of symbolic notation to represent
the various mechanics of natural language. And in logic, of course, they
have been employing symbolic notation for various kinds of predicate and
argument manipulation forever. I think that Lojban is very much the
student of these disciplines rather than the master.

Geoff