Re: lojban imperfections?

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

John Clifford (aka "pc") and several others have posted answers to the
7 tricky questions.  I haven't had time to read all of the comments
carefully, but I probably agree with pc (as I usually do) on most of them.

I will note in addition that

on 1) another key point for SVO is that it allows description structure
in description sumti to parallel the normal bridi structure.  That is
"le [description]" is defined as being the intended x1 that would fill the
place in the bridi "x1 [description]"  Any order other than SVO makes this
parallel less obvious.

SOV order is euqaly unmarked.  VSO requires "fa" after the selbri before
x1, but for some particular predications (cumki, lakne, etc.) seems to be
expressed that way.  Those who first did so claimed trhat this was NOT
done merely out of English bias, even though there is a common colloquial
English form that parallels these particular examples.



on the Sapir-Whorf test - there are no detailed plans, but there has been
occasional chit0chat of varying levels of seriousness regarding how to
go about this.  pc was involved in a couple of these, and we even tried to do
 some data gathering using a standard logic test, but did not have a stable
 group
of subjects.

We will probably not assume that we have the stability to try something like
this that is long term, untill we have managed to test the much simpler and
more straightforward experiment designed into LogFlash, which requires that
we get a few people to actually use the program seriously for a few months and
send us the dat that is generated.  This has yet to happen %^)

>4. Lojban claims to be culturally neutral and unbiased because of its
>artificial-ness.  However, as I understand it, its vocabulary was
>developed to have maximum resemblance to words from some the world's most
>popular languages.  How can this be artificial or culturally neutral?


I think pc said this, but the words are not all that recognizable to ANY
of the 6 major languages.  They are supposed to be algorithmically
learnable by mnemonic methods to people from those langauges, so as to
minimize learning difficulty while preserving cultural neutrality.
The above-mentioned LogFlash experiment will give data as to whether the
presumed mnemonicity is indeed helpful to learners.

A side benefit of the algorithm is that Lojban gismu have a certain common
sound-flavor that purely random words would not have.  Sound combinations
are more likely to be ones that are actually found in the source language and
thus presumably more pleasant to the ear.

>5. Lojban seems to emphasise morphological and syntactic ambiguity, and
>the language seems to try hard to be the less ambiguous possible.
>However, Lojban allows the compounding of roots to form compound
>words that by themselves could mean any number of things.  Is this
>--More--
>intentional?  Why is this allowed in a supposedly unambiguous language?


tanru are indeed semantically ambiguous in the way that you describe.

lujvo, once created, are intended to have a single fixed meaning just as
rigid as the gismu root meaning are.  However, the method of determining this
meaning is somewhat less than algoriothmic as pc and others have said.
But in the long term, lujvo will appear in the dictionary alongside gismu
and will be equally fixed.  meanwhile, you can use the guidelines in the
reference grammar, or other guidelines that make sense to you, in order to make
"nonce lujvo" and have a reasonable chance that they will be understood.
Discrepencies in such lujvo are likely to be in the higher numbered places
that are seldom filled in, and of course context will often give you clues as to
 what the intended semantic role is of the various places.

People manage to learn English naturally even though every single "place" of
every word is rather arbitrary, and in some cases is opposite to what one
might expect.  (e.g. the verb "obscure" means to make something obscure, and
the subject of the verb is seldom itself obscure - rather it is the object.
Other English verbs do not all work this way.)

This argument also answers 6:
>6.  To learn Lojban, I would have to master the order, number, and
>semantics of arguments associated with each predicate.

No one as yet has mastered more than a couple such place structures and yet
Lojban conversation has taken place, and  indeed some non-native English
speakers have used the language quite easily.  The semantics of the arguments,
because of the nature of Lojban's grammar, os seldom that much like English
except at the superficial gloss level.

Again the learnability of English answers question 7:
>7. Is Lojban intended to be a language learnt and usable by humans?  If
>so, how can it have such strict velency rules that depend only on physical
>order for identifying the role of each argument.

Since English has only physical order for identifying the role of the first
2 and sometimes 3 "arguments", and yet people manage to learn vocabularies
of thousands of words in a very few years.

>Is there anybody in the world fluent in Lojban, speaking fast and
>naturally, just as an Anglophone speaks English?


There is one such person, Nick Nicholas of Australia, who has seemed fluent to
his listeners, but since no one is a fluent listener (i.e. can follow him in
detail at that speed), he has to slow down a lot.  He also might make a few
 errors, but few detect them, and his written Lojban is of high quality.

I am the second most fluent speaker, but I do not speak fast, though I seldom
need to resort to a dictionary.  I have not memorized place structures either.

lojbab