Re: ni, jei, perfectionism

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

>>The question is, did you find ANY that was not an indirect question?
>>My claim was that the little usage that {jei} had was as an indirect
>>questions.
>
>That is arguable,

It would not be so difficult to disprove. Just find three or four quotes
where it wasn't used as such. Or maybe even one would be of interest.

>It is clear that5 your ramapny use of du'u for all sorts of things has
>indeed rendered some other usages less common.

My rampant use of du'u? Could you elaborate? In what cases do you
disagree with my usage? I wasn't aware that you thought I overused it.

I particularly insist on using {du'u} in the x2 places of
djuno/jimpe/jinvi/krici etc. which mean "x1
knows/understands/opines/believes
that x2 is true about x3". Other than that, I was not aware that I made a
particular insistence on du'u. (I'm not talking about the very recent
discussion with And, since it hasn't had time to affect my usage, and
I'm not sure yet what will be the outcome of it.) So I'm baffled that you
would
describe my use of du'u as rampant/ramapny.

 >> In my opinion many people started to use
>>{le du'u xukau} instead of {le jei} thanks to one of those discussions,
>
>"many people"?  I don't think "many people" have used EITHER le jei or
>le du'u xukau.

Ok, many people in a lojbanic context. Not many people have used
ANY lojban at all.

>Most people who have done stuff in the langauge have been
>doing translations, and it just doesn't come up much in literature.

What doesn't? Indirect questions are quite commmon in literature.
My claim is that people now tend to prefer {le du'u xukau} over {le jei}.
Which is just as well, since {le jei} is wrong if you insist that its
meaning is truth value.

 >> {jei} becomes
>>practically useless if not used as an indirect question.
>
>No, it merely gets restricted to its original purpose, which had nothing to
>do with indirect questions.

Since you seem to be the only one capable of judging its original
purpose, I can't argue with that. My point is that it becomes useless
when denied its original _use_ as an indirect question (that's how it
was used from the start, whatever was its purpose be du'o la lojbab).

> I agree it is not the type of thing that is
>frequently needed, but then this is true of at leats half the cmavo.

Right, we agree about that.

>Iff we ever return to fuzzy logic, jei will be more useful.

How? Or is that just a supposition? I think we already use fuzzy logic
in our Lojban usage.

 >>Nick's texts predate the discussion, I'm pretty sure. Indeed, most of
>>his texts predate my participation in the list.
>
>And unfortunately, other than you and Goran and Chris, almost no one
>has done ANY extensive text in the language since Nick went inactive.

And before that? Is the list much longer? It's weird that on the one hand
you say that we have to pay attention to usage and on the other hand
you say that we shouldn't.

>Thus, except for you, MOST Lojban usage has predated all the technical
>discussions,

I could say, except for Nick, MOST Lojban usage has postdated the
technical discussions. So what?

>and it seems true to me that the technical discussions were
>a significant factor in choking off  efforts of less experienced Lojbanists
>to attempt to use the language.

There were many efforts by less experienced Lojbanists along with
the technical discussions. I remember having Lojban conversations
with several different people (a couple of times even by private mail).
You can check out the public ones in the archives. In those conversations,
the technical discussions were usually ignored, but sometimes
there was even technical discussion in Lojban. I really can't imagine
my remaining very interested in Lojban list without it.

co'o mi'e xorxes