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reply to And #3
Re: still on nu & fasnu...
>> Which it cannot be since that is the definition of fasnu and nu (both).
>> This is an echo of ckaji/ka and klani/ni
>
>If by definition {lo nu broda cu fasnu} must be true, that places
>a constraint on the possible meaning of nu and fasnu. For example,
>it means either that fasnu does not mean "a happening" or that
>"nu" does not mean "an event-type".
>We ought to check whether you are correctly reporting the content
>of the refgrammar, but I assume you are.
I was reporting the content of the gismu list. As you are often wont to
say, the refgram is often vague on matters of semantics. But then it is
a book about syntax rather more than it is about semantics. John made
it faiurly clear that many if not most questions about semantics had not
been even discussed much less answered in the Book.
>> I am similarly begging out of your zo quote stuff, but my usage will
>> likely continue be that mi bacru/cusku zo .arg. and if I say it twice,
>> I am likely to have no qualms about re zo .arg. not that I will necessarily
>> say this myself.
>
>It is somewhat hypocritical of you to fail to base your usage on
>the avowed principles of Lojban, after you have in the past
>castigated me for being willfully deviant.
I castigated you, as it were, for being willfully deviant against the
stated conventions. But here we are not talking about stated
conventions. You are trying to take something glossed over in the
refgram (if it were not glossed over, you would simply need to quote me
chapter and verse, and there would be no debate, would there?) and infer
meaning from it. I am not sure that we want to use the refgrammar in
this way - to take it in the matter of the American Constitution and
deduce and elaborate an immense structure of "common law" conventions in
advance of usage that will then be intended to govern such usage (The
Constitution is of course on the other hand left vague, with the
American Supreme Court ruling on its meaning after actual usage has
elaborated an issue - and then it tries to avoid overspecifying what the
vagueness really means.) I am also reminded of Chalker's "Dancing Gods"
series of books, where an admittedly incomplete set of books of rules
was supposed to be the sole design specification for a universe, with
the obvious flaws that result from such an attempt being the basis for
all manner of weirdness as people and creatures try to wind their way
through the cracks in the rules.
>Anyway, {re zo .arg.} is grammatical. It is meaningless only on
>one definition of {zo}. If usage legitimizes {re zo} then we will
>know that {zo} has a different definition.
And perhaps zo alone has one meaning and re zo some other meaning. Only
the descriptors have the explicit features of
set/mass/individual/typical. zo and the pronouns, and other sumti are
vague amongst the possibilities.
>> Your discussion has simply gotten to arcane and out of touch with human
>> communication for me. I am not used to even trying to be rigorous about
>> the distinction between a word and its manifestation and this affects
>> both zo and li ci. You are not even managing to convince me that the
>> discussion is important, much less that there is something meaningful being
>> said.
>
>It does no harm to abstain from the debates.
WEre it so easy to just say it and then follow through. But as I said, I
have opinions one most everything %^)
>If the principles and basic conventions governing the
>Lojban speech community are already in place,
I'd like to think so.
>and we are trying
>to build a community that actually conforms to those principles
>and conventions, then we need some kind of "usage police".
Why? can we not merely use the same principles used by natlangs and let
usage police itself (and that of the Internet and let Users police
Themselves). I think that in the areas where decisions have been
clearly made, that there will be little movement toexplictly violate the
conventions, and they will be as successful as your own efforts weren't.
But wee are talking abouit deducing on ethe basis of (IMHO)
ill-thought-out logics to extend the conventions.
pc has said that while many of the basics of logic have been well
agreed-upon, each school of logic has its own nuances and elaborations
which conflict with each other. I get the feeling that you are trying
to have us commit to a whole set of such nuances and elaborations as to
the basics that we are simply not ready for, and will likely not be
ready for until we have substantial mastery of the basics that we have.
No doubt some usages will occur that contraduct each other in subtleties
of logic. But I am content to let that happen and resolve it later when
we actuall can see the examples of how it leads to problems.
And I am not entirely sure a problem has occurred until someone says
something that someone else cannot understand based on all information
available includingcontext.
>> I and others dropped out of the last one because it simply is not what we
>> want to do with the language. I tried to distil conclusions from the
>> last round primarily because I needed to be sure that anything significant
>> made it into the baseline book. That is no longer in question.
>
>The issues are different now. Noone has been arguing for anything
>that would conflict with the baseline, except perhaps for
>clarification where the baseline itself is inherently contradictory.
And my answer is that if the baseline is truly inherently contradictory,
then let it be, because we aren't going to change it even if it is.
This may lead to some problems, as people ddo things assuming one
version of the rules hold, that people interpeting otherwise will FAIL
TO UNDERSTAND. Then we have something meaningful to talk about (in
Lojban of course %^) to choose which of the two specific possibilities
is the Right One (tm) and then AFTER siad debates to figure out whether
there is any way to reconcile the result with past usage. Sometimes
(iundeed most of the time) these debates have led to resolutions that
are fairly simply and have minimal impact on past usage and its
valiudity. This is good because then people have confidence that such
debates as we have been having aren't goping to up and change the
recently printed baseline before the ink is dry. Right now we need
users and learners and more users, and too many will hold back so long
as they think that the language is still up in the air AND that it is
bveing settled by debate rather than by usage.
>> >I realize that to many these discussions are arcane, pedantic and
>> >pointless.
>>
>> I am beginning to feel that all of them are, until we get more usage.
>
>By what criteria would Lojban be deemed by you to have succeeded?
>If your answer is " adynamic and sizable speech community using
>Lojban", explain what counts as "using Lojban".
Several criteria, each according to the particular goals. The one you
stated applies to many of them either directly or indirectly (such a
community will increase our respect among linguists, IAL proponents, and
computer applkications people because they will know that the language
"works" as a language, is learnable, etc.)
In the context of the net, I would presume that "using Lojban" includes
all the sorts of things that one might see being done with Esperanto on
the net. People exchanging correspondence in the language, trnaslating
or writing new literature in the language, a newsgroup wherte people who
argue for change are constantly shouted down %^), whereas people who
advocate change while writing in the language get a fair listen (and
then still have minimal effect though mindsets can change and evolve
over such debates).
I still would like to see us manage to hold our annual meeting of LLG in
Lojban some year, but it won't be soon %^).
>> That argument worked before we declared the baseline. Now by dictum the
>> language prescription is done, and the language is what it is.
>
>So what is the language, then?
What is any language? In Lojban lo bangu requires lo se bangu and it is
that collection of usages performed by lo se bangu presumably when they
are acting as a community (so it is a mass effect).
>> Until we
>> get 5 years of usage history, I will question whether we have any idea
>> whether Lojban is or is not fulfilling anything.
>
>So suppose we do nothing, wait five years, and find out that it
>isn't fulfillinf anything, but might have had we not done nothing,
>would you then sit back in satisfaction?
The baseline is for 5 years MINIMUM. If no one uses the language at all
in 5 years, we might need to figure out why and go back to the drawing
board. But I am confident that will not happen. But if we collectively
think that we need more time, then we will wait more than 5 years.
Maybe wait as long as Esperanto has waited for its big revision %^).
These last three responses seem worthy of debate in separate threads.
What is the language, what is usage of the language, and what
constitutes satisfaction with our results. I think tyhey would attract
more discussion if removed from the mind-boggling logic usage threads.
>> And pc's silence tells me quite clearly that HE doesn't think the issue is
>> important (and/or decidable).
>
>--More--
>Of course it's not that important. I participate in Lojban
>only because I enjoy it, not because it's important. If I
>less selfishly cared more about things that are important I
>should instead be pouring my energies into exposing human rights
>violations around the world, or something like that.
No, not whether the language is important - whether the issues are
imprtant to the language, especially at this time. pc has historically
been prone to straddles every issue he can manage to, and to change his
mind readily based ont eh argument and assumptoions of the moment. I
think his silence indicates that either he sees the issues as
straddleable (no decision is needed) or that they are too subkect to the
assumptioons of the people arguing right now, in which case time and
usage might make the issues clearer if they are really worth deciding.
But of course I don;t speak for pc - he can do that for himself if he
cares to %^)
>> I think in the future when we start ducking into logic, I will
>> simply defer to him. I after all am the person who got a "D" in a
>> logic class that could not be failed (it was a mastery learning
>> course, and I was on an incomplete until I finished enough to get
>> a "D" and thereby pass and graduate, si8nce it was my last required
>> course).
>
>I got an A but it was a baby logic course. On my Montague Semantics
>course, the most incomprehensible one I ever took, I got a D too.
>But I've always been a bad learner.
Mine was the baby logic course too. Montague I don't know from Capulet.
And I cannot even claim to be a good language learner. My skill in
Lojban plateaued short of fluency despite 11 years and a wife who can
understand me - I learn only that vocabulary that I practice with
LogFlash, so it seems. Russian, I speak fluently to 5 year olds, and
cannot understand much of what adults say unless they are talkingh to 5
year olds (the difference between 5 year old language and adult language
is so drastic, based on my experience that i am close to arguing that
the whole poverty of the stimulus/language acquisition dispute is a red
hgerring and 5 years olds do not really uderstand the same language
adults do - but that is another debate)
lojbab
----
lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
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