perversity squared

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>Lojbab wrote:
>>Indeed the decision to baseline the place structures AT ALL, took place
>>over my objection.  My intent was that the semantics should be totally
>>fluid.  the reality is that the place structures as is constrain the
>>meanings of the words.
>
>Without reopening an old (and obviously irrelevant) argument, can you
>give us a short summary of how you anticipated the place structures
>being developed, if not by prescription?
>
>It would seem that any language, and in particular lojban, which has
>some kind of ordering defined (e.g. subject-verb-object, or X1 broda X2
>X3) has to start with some agreement as to ordering of components and
>what those components mean in a given order (e.g. hitter hits hittee),
>or communication is impossible.
>
>Rik.


Yes and no.  Certainly the ordering of components and their number for that
matter have been defined and indeed baselined in Lojban.  What those
components actually mean is necssarily vague to some extent (insert Cowan's
maxim about infinite verbosity being the price otherwise).

I intended (and still intend) the language semantics to be defined through
actual usage.  And that usage should be the usage of people thinking in and
using thelanguage, NOT people translating English (or other language) thoughts
into Lojban using a gismu list.

I haven;t memorized the gismu list place structuresl nor do I intend to try.
I never expected anyone else to try either.  yet I intend that people be able
to use Lojban without consulting the gismu list for every word choice that they
make.

Thus I envision that people will memorize the gismu themselves, along with
keywords and/or other synonyms that will give them a gestalt sense of the
meaning.  In many cases they will also remember the number of places or at
least the roles of some of the places - not all, and not with semantic
precision.

They will make word choices based initially on their own impressions of the
meanings, probably at least in part colored by their native language intuitions,
but as usage grows, rather more by the usages of these words by others.
The less people make use of the gismu list, and the more they wing it,
the better, allowing themselves to make mistakes, but letting the interactions
with others IN LOJBAN guide them towards successful communication whihc in turn
will lead to a new sense of the meaning of the words.

When you have no clue what the place ordering is, then turn to a reference
just as you would turn to a thesaurus or dictionary in English to try to
find just the right word, even while being a native speaker who presumably
knows the English language quite thoroughly.  But just as we don't carry
dictionaries around everywhere we go, we should not need to consult the gismu
list often for ordinary conversation.

Ideally spontaneous conversation of the sort Goran and Jorge and others
recently demonstrated will become commonplace for people of widely different
language backgrounds and attitudes. Each will have their own concept of
what djuno and xunre mean, and will use these words accordingly. If they
communicate successfully, then the conceptual meaning will have bee
understood and be reinforced.  As conversation proceeds, other words choices
may change your associations and hence your concept of the meaning.  Use of
the word by others will also affect your concept.  And of course failire to
communicate will lead to a more careful review of ones conceptual meaning.

The result will hopefully be lots of Lojban usage usually but not always
consistent with the gismu place structures.  Hopefully we have been
consistent enough about ordering strategies that ordering will remain
consistent, but the semantics of each place will likely be scattered.
Not randomly - the place DOES have to be related to the other places per
the gismu being used.

Oral conversation will of course tend to be even more spontaneous and prone to
ad hoc conceptualization of place structures. Tanru making and lujvo making
will lead to new associations and soemtimes to new senses of the gismu
being relaized.

If we have 100 speakers, it will be like 1000 parallel processors exploring
semantics more or less indepoendently.   ^100 that is
If we have 1000 speakers, we'll have 1000 paralllel processors.  Our
collective minds thinking in Lojban and interacfting using our concepts will
define the semantics far more thoroughly than could words on a piece of paper
or a computer screeen.

After 5 years of this, we can thne look at actual fluent usage.  If people
have gone far from using the dictionary much of the time when they talk or
write then the language usage will NOT be that of the prescription.  But it
will largely have coalesced (I hope).  Usages contrary to the
prescription in isolation can be considered as errors, but a pattern of
usage that differs from the prescription is a chnage from how the language was
conceived.

If people always or usually add a BAI tagged place to a gismu, that place
should be added without requiring the BAI.  If a place is never used, it
suggests that the place is not really relevant, in which case it might be
deleted.  Usage may have clarified what types of things can go in each place,
and will give insights on how the language community sess the semantics.
The post baseline dictionary would be descriptive of howe this ACTUAL usage
has worked out.  The changes may be considerable, orrelatively minor.

Only time will tell.

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
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