functions

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

Now that the grammar has been baselined and the Book is out, .e'u the
luminaries of Lojban concentrate their attention on functional Lojban.  The
string on tea and coffee, although sometimes hard to follow (at least for a
beginner like me) has been worthwhile because it is an attempt to discuss
how you might actually _do_ something in Lojban, like ask someone to choose
between two alternatives.  Obviously we can't prescribe functional language
(a lot of which is in any case culturally specific) but it would be useful
to throw up a range of choices, and then let natural selection take its
course.  Then when the draft textbook becomes the Textbook, these can be
incorporated.

My main criticism of the draft textbook as it stands is that it's largely a
step by step journey through the refgram.  If we want to produce a textbook
that is a practical guide to Lojban, then it needs (pace Austin) to
concentrate more on "how to do things with words" - such as ask someone a
"whether" question, for example.  This would also require substantial
changes in the "syllabus" - this is the only language textbook I have come
across where you don't get to numbers until Chapter 10!  This is not to
belittle the textbook, which I think does a reasonable job at what it sets
out to do (i.e. present the grammar and semantics of Lojban in a digestible
way) but since any future readers of the textbook will also (.a'o) have a
copy of the Book, they need to be offered something different, i.e. a
course that will enable them to start communicating in Lojban as soon as
possible.  After all, I don't start teaching English to beginners by
explaining English sentence structure, I start with things like "Hi, how
are you?" li'a teaching/learning a conlang like Lojban is going to be
different from learning a natlang - mu'a you wouldnt need to spend much
time on how to do your shopping in Lojban - but I still think we can learn
a lot from second-language pedagogy here.


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>