response to Edward Cherlin on anti-ka and Lojban deficiencies

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

Last month Edward Cherlin wrote:
>I raised the question of definitions in the context of the lujvo paper,
>and was told that there is no way to define the meaning of a tanru
>except by inadequate circumlocutions (the anti-ka thread).

Jorge and I each came up with a way to handle anti-ka, which Cowan
decided would work.  It just has not yet been posted.  But rest assured
that the issue was not closed.  There will be ways to define tanru.

>I asked if it would be possible to name a set of relations that I
>created (the pro-bridi thread).  Apparently there are again inadequate
>circumlocutions, but no method beyond brod?, which fails because there
>are only 5,

This is a valid and intended place for use of subscripts - to extend the
set of brodV:  broda xixaxaxa

>the writer/speaker can't control their bindings with precision,

I missed this.  CEI should be usale to bind with precision.

>and they aren't names.

if you want names, we have name space.  Then you can use "me la neim."

>In particular, we are not to make up gismu during the baseline period.

OK

>We are not to make up cmavo, unless we can show that lojban is broken,
>and proposals for new cmavo will be resisted.

Umm.  Not the way I would put it.  I would rather say that this is the
present policy.  Post-baseline, we want to have the sense that cmavo
proposals are arising from actual Lojban usage rather than from
prescriptive analysis of a problem in English.

In other words, you use an XVV cmavo, explaining your usage as you do so
(in Lojban of course), and then, if undertsanding is achieved, you would
continue to use it.  If others pick up on the usage, then the
"experimental cmavo" has become deafcto part of the language.  How de
facto changes to the language become de jure is a topic for discussion
only after we have such things to discuss.

>We are constrained in inventing lujvo by the default place structure
>proposal,

There is no such constraint.  The dikyjvo convention is a proposal that
is not being "approved" but merely described, and is not intended to be
constraining if you have a reason to violate it.

But even if there is constraint, this does not justify your statements
below about Lojban's extensibility, unless you can show that there is no
way using dikyjvo to gain access to a new concept.

>which arises from the fear that people inventing their own relations
>will burden others with memorizing the new place structures.

That fear will arise no matter what you do. dikyjvo do not solve the
problem of memorizing place structures, because their application is not
fully algorithmic in all cases (judgment is required), and more
important, because people will not generally go working out the place
structures of each lujvo they hear at fluent speeds.

I would say:  invent lujvo at will, trying to bear in mind and
internalize the KINDS of considerations that dikyjvo require, but for ad
hoc use, just let fly.

>We can invent tanru, supposedly with great freedom,

Yes, but going beyond some degree of freedom demands explicitly marking
it as unusual.  This does NOT constrain the use of such tanru.

>but then we get jumped on for exercising that freedom, since we can't
>make clear what we mean.

I would not jump on someone who uses tanru creatively, provided that if
the usage steps over into figurative usage, the tanru is marked for it.

>The argument then gets bogged down in side issues such as the supposed
>nature of metaphor or slang.

Mostly because we are stuck in English mode.

When people are actually writing in Lojban, little constrains the use of
tanru and lujvo, and understanding takes place.

>In short, lojban is not extensible.

You left out fu'ivla, and names.  These types of "borrowing" are the
final resort in devising new-subject content-words, especially thoise
with very specific semantics.

>It is analogous to Dartmouth BASIC, one of the very few programming
>languages that did not provide for naming subprograms.

I see what you are saying, but do not agree that it is true about
Lojban.  I don't think that new words are as formally defined as
"subprograms".  Lojban is NOT a computer language, and it is especially
true that its semantics are not well-defined in the sense that a
computer language's semantics must be.

>It is precisely analogous to a flat file database compared with a
>relational database.  Toy software.  As presently designed, lojban is a
>toy language, which cannot be used effectively.

It has been.

>Although several people here can speak and write lojban within its
>present confines, any attempt to apply it to significant new subject
>material results simply in endless bickering.

Not sure what you mean by "new subject matter".  Nick had no trouble
writing new texts on different subjects, coining new lujvo at will.
dikyjvo result from his analysis of what actually DID occur when he
made up lujvo.

I have no problem with anyone's attempt to use Lojban in this way, or
when writing IN LOJBAN, to use fu'ivla at will.  For example, in an
all-Lojban discussion, I would never complain about Steven B's
"lojrfuzi" for fuzzy logic.

Endless bickering is happening because 1) too many people are more
interested in arguing about the language design rather than using the
language 2) the arguments that result are occuring in English and on the
net, two communities where verbosity and endless bickering is a social
norm.

>Most of the proposals for language extensions do not belong in the base
>language.  Certainly it is much too early to create a grammar (i.e. new
>cmavo, or new uses for old ones) for fuzzy logic, when we don't know who
>would use it, for what, and most importantly in what version.

That has been my philosophy.

>We ought to be able to resolve the ro broda issue, since it would be
>adequate to pick any one of the contending syntaxes that is capable of
>expressing the semantics of the others.  But the ro broda issue is a
>symptom, not the real problem.

We will do so.

>In both of these cases, the argument seems to be that choosing one
>syntax prevents people from expressing a different semantics,

Only if syntax dictates semantics, which it does not (it may constrain
it somewhat. but not dictate it).

>or that failing to choose a syntax prevents some form of expression.

If that is the case, then no language is extensible.

>In either case, it should be possible to state clearly what one intends
>by a logical or fuzzily logical expression, or to invent new ones.

We don't know that this cannot be done.  The criticism most commonly
made is that it cannot be done "elegantly", implying a standard of
elegance and aesthetics that is not universal, and from what I have seen
of it, not too Lojbanic.

>Indeed this shouldi be true for any area of discourse.  It should be
>possible to invent an expression without having to invent cmavo.

Yes, and it is.

>It should be possible to name one's invention.

You can name anything.

>It should be possible to state its definition unambiguously, specifying
>with equal clarity the context in which the definition applies.

This is where we probably disagree.  I contend that it is impossible to
state any definition unambiguously in semantics because the words that
you use to state the definition do not have unambiguous semantics.  This
is not a constraint on language extensibility, since it is equally true
of all spoken languages.

Cowan's Maxim on Infinite Verbosity applies here.

>It should then be possible to communicate rather than wrangle.

It is.  Scattered among the wranglings, Goran posts in Lojban and gets
responded to in Lojban, pretty much regardless of the topic he writes
on.  (Obligatory pun on Goran's last name omitted).

lojbab