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Copyright, 1991, by the	Logical	Language Group,	Inc. 2904 Beau Lane,
Fairfax	VA 22031-1303 USA Phone	(703) 385-0273
[email protected]

All rights reserved.  Permission to copy granted subject to your
verification that this is the latest version of	this document, that your
distribution be	for the	promotion of Lojban, that there	is no charge for
the product, and that this copyright notice is included	intact in the
copy.

						 Number	14 - March 1991
				   Copyright 1991,  The	Logical	Language Group,	Inc.
				   2904	Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA	(703)385-0273
	Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.

					     Fund-Raising Drive	Successful

					 Regular In-Language Activities	Started

					    Loglan Trademark Claim Cancelled

					      LogFest 91 - 21-24 June 1991

					       Details Inside, and More.

     Ju'i Lobypli (JL) is the quarterly	journal	of The Logical Language	Group, Inc., known in these pages as la
lojbangirz.  la	lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed	for the	purpose	of completing and spreading the	logical
human language "Lojban - A Realization of Loglan" (commonly called "Lojban"), and informing the	community about	logical
languages in general.  For purposes of terminology, "Lojban" refers to a specific version of a logical language, the
generic	language and associated	research project having	been called "Loglan" since its invention by Dr.	James Cooke
Brown in 1954.	Statements referring to	"Loglan/Lojban"	refer to both the generic language and to Lojban as a specific
instance of that language.
     la	lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the	U.S. Internal Revenue Code.  Your
donations (not contributions to	your voluntary balance)	are tax-deductible on U.S. and most state income taxes.	 Donors
are notified at	the end	of each	year of	their total deductible donations.  We note for all potential donors that our
bylaws require us to spend no more than	30% of our receipts on administrative expenses,	and that you are welcome to make
you gifts conditional upon our meeting this requirement.
     Page count	this issue: 96+8 enclosures ($10.40 North America, $12.48 elsewhere).  Press run for this issue	of Ju'i
Lobypli: 270.  We now have about 600 people on our active mailing list,	and 200	more awaiting textbook publication.

						   Your	Mailing	Label

Your mailing label reports your	current	mailing	status,	and your current voluntary balance including this issue.  Please
notify us if you wish to be in a different mailing code	category.  Balances reflect contributions received thru	13 March
1991.  Mailing codes (and approximate annual balance needs) are	defined	as follows:

Level B	- Product Announcements	Only		Level R	- This is a Review Copy	for Publications
Level 0	- le lojbo karni - $4 initially	+ $5/year balance requested
Level 1	- Ju'i Lobypli - $20 initially + $20/year balance requested
Level 2	- Level	1 materials and	baselined products - $25 initially + $25/year balance requested
Level 3	- Level	2 materials and	lesson materials - $50 initially + $40/year balance requested

Please keep us informed	of changes in your mailing address, and	US subscribers are asked to provide ZIP+4 codes	whenever
					   you know them.  (We now have	to!)

						 Contents of This Issue
							   2


     We	skipped	one quarterly issue cycle, but have now	resumed	our activities.	 This longer than average issue	should
help make up for the long wait.
     This issue	reports	on the news of the last	6 months.  In addition,	we briefly survey the 'areas of	interest' that
are listed on our registration form, so	that you can see the scope of Lojban activities, and the potential in each area.
We then	move from this general discussion into the specific topic of Lojban and	linguistics, with which	the bulk of this
issue deals.  (Please pardon the occasional jargon therein - some contributors were writing for	a different audience.
We've tried to elaborate on the	jargon where it	seemed necessary for understanding.  The lead article on this topic is
John Cowan's response to the 1969 critical review of Loglan written by linguist	Dr. Arnold Zwicky; that	review was never
responded to by	Dr. Brown, to the detriment of Loglan/Lojban's acceptance in the linguistics community.	 We also include
edited transcripts of some computer network discussions	regarding Lojban, Esperanto, and linguistics, and a brief
description of Lojban written for linguists (as	opposed	to our brochure	discussion for laymen).
     Finally, we print some of your letters, with responses.  Thanks to	all of you for your continued interest and
support.  Included are final words for now on the subject of Esperanto and Lojban, including a more scholarly discussion
on 'rule-counting'.
     Bob LeChevalier continues his regular 'column' written directly in	Lojban,	and without translation.  All
subscribers should have	all the	materials needed to read this text.  We	also have other	texts of various levels	of
difficulty, including a	simple and familiar fairy tale.

						   Table of Contents

News
  Finances						       --3
  Using	the Language					       --5
  Language Development Activities			       --6
  Products Status, Prices, and Ordering			       --9
  Publicity						      --11
  International	News					      --13
  News From the	Institute - Trademark Cancellation	      --14
A Survey of Lojban Applications				      --16
Response to Arnold Zwicky's 1969 Review	of Loglan 1	      --21
A First	Cut at a Linguistic Description	of Lojban	      --29
Computer Network Discussions on	Loglan/Lojban and Linguistics (and Esperanto and ...)	  --30
   including Lojban gismu Etymologies			      --60
Proposed Lojban	Machine	Grammar	Baseline Changes	      --67
Letters, Comments, and Responses - Vincent Burch, John Hodges, Bernard Golden, David Morrow    --70
le lojbo se ciska - some comparative artificial	linguistics, a story, and more	--76
Translations of	le lojbo se ciska			      --88
The Recent Press Release			  --Back Page (96)
Enclosures - cmavo change list,	Lojban Grammar in E-BNF	form

						Computer Net Information

     Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files (including things for JL publication) to Bob at:
[email protected]
     You can also join the Lojban news-group.
Send your mailing address to:		  [email protected]
Send traffic for the news-group	to:	  [email protected]
     Please keep us informed if	your network mailing address changes.
     Compuserve	subscribers can	also participate.  Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET: and use your normal
    Compuserve mail facility.  Usenet/Internet people can send to Compuserve addresses by changing the comma in	the
			    Compuserve address to a period:	  [email protected]
     FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although	the connection is not especially robust.  Write	to us for
details.
     Whether you wish to participate in	the news-group or not, it is useful for	us to know your	Compuserve or
Usenet/Internet	address.

							   3


  We've	been requested to more explicitly identify people who are referred to by initials in JL, and will regularly do
so in this spot, immediately before the	news section.  Note that 'Athelstan' is	that person's real name, used in his
public life, and is not	a pseudonym.

  'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the University of Missouri - St.	Louis and Vice-
President of la	lojbangirz.; he	is usually addressed as	'pc' by	the community.
  'Bob', 'lojbab' - Bob	LeChevalier - President	of la lojbangirz., and editor of Ju'i Lobypli and le lojbo karni.
  'Nora' - Nora	LeChevalier - Secretary/Treasurer of la	lojbangirz., Bob's wife, author	of LogFlash.
  'JCB', 'Dr. Brown'- Dr. James	Cooke Brown, inventor of the language, and founder of the Loglan project.
  'The Institute', 'TLI' - The Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's organization for spreading	his version of Loglan, which we
call 'Institute	Loglan'.
  'Loglan' - This refers to the	generic	language or language project, of which 'Lojban'	is the most successful version,
and Institute Loglan another.  'Loglan/Lojban' is used in discussions about Lojban where we wish to make it particularly
clear that the statement applies to the	generic	language as well.

							  News
							Finances

     As	most of	you know, we sent out a	fund-raising letter in November	to all US, Canada, and Mexico subscribers,
requesting that	people contribute against their	voluntary balance, or to donate	extra money if their balance was
positive.  Our finances	after JL13 had reached a crisis	state, and action needed to be taken.
     I want to thank those of you who responded	to our fund-raising letter.  We	received over 100 contributions	in
response to that letter	in 6 weeks, more than twice the	number of letters we usually receive in	3 months in response to
a JL issue.  Clearly, you prefer to be bugged about finances in	a direct letter	rather in the pages of this issue.
$3500 in contributions was received in November	and December, and small	amounts	continue to trickle in.	 Of that money,
most was payments against voluntary balances, but over $1000 of	it was in donations.  (We have sent out	summary	notices
for tax	purposes acknowledging all donations received during 1990.  If you believe that	you made a donation and	did not
get a receipt, please let us know.)
     A secondary goal of the mailing was to identify people who	were not reading our publications, and who wished to be
dropped	to a lower level of mailing, or	who wished to be dropped entirely until	at least after the textbook is
published.  Some 25 of the respondents requested such a	drop in	level.
     A tertiary	goal of	the mailing was	to identify as many as possible	incorrect addresses.  Our normal 3rd class bulk
mailing	has a label requesting forwarding, and guaranteeing forwarding postage.	 However, such notices are often ignored
by the post office, which treats bulk mailings as being	of the lowest priority.	 Moral:	if you want to keep getting
material from us, make sure we get a change of address from you	when you move -	don't rely on the post office to tell
us.  To	our first class	mailing, we received over 35 such notices of incorrect addresses, many of which	also had no for-
warding	notice on file with the	post office.
     All in all	the letter was a big success, much better than we had hoped for	in response to our plea, especially
given a	recession in the economy and the distractions of world events.	We finished the	year with over $4000 in	the
bank, and are no longer	living from week to week.
     We	aren't out of the woods	yet, of	course.	 While we have $4000 in	the bank, voluntary balances total $4500.  So we
still technically owe more than	we have.  In addition, legal bills, which Jeff Prothero	and Bob	have committed to
paying,	constitute a recorded liability	on our accounts	of some	$6000, making our net worth substantially negative.  And
we still need to accumulate $5000-$10000 for publication of the	Lojban textbook.  So don't hold	back just because we're
not on the point of bankruptcy anymore.	 Still,	you can	rest assured that we are in business for a while to come, and if
you continue to	respond	when we	are really in need, you	can count on la	lojbangirz. being around to support your
Loglan/Lojban interests	and efforts.
     We	have a head start on finances this year.  Sylvia Rutiser has pledged a donation	of at least $1000 in support of
la lojbangirz. for the coming year.
     Following is a summary of the la lojbangirz. financial report for 1990.  This report has not yet been finalized and
approved by the	Board of Directors.

						 1990 Financial	Report

					      1990		  1989
Income

Contributions/Deferred Reimbursements	  $8523.37	      $8037.88
Donations				  $6164.90	      $7633.40
					  ________	      ________

							   4


Net Income				 $14688.27	     $15671.28

Expenses

Printing and Publications		  $3892.76	      $5643.92
Non-administrative Postage		  $1001.85	      $1903.91
Virginia Sales Tax Collections		    $34.02		$40.32
Royalties				    $60.00		$50.00
Office Supplies				   $434.86	       $494.13
Software				     $0.00	       $102.41
LogFest/LogFair				   $957.87	       $394.11
Advertising/Publicity/Conventions	    $39.70	      $1602.90
Telephone				  $1180.62	      $1239.53
Administrative Expenses	     $228.19		     $518.71
Legal Expenses		    $3082.00		    $4099.68
			    ________		    ________
			    $3310.19	  $3310.19  $4618.39  $4618.39
				 30%	  ________	 29%   _______
Net Expenses				 $11052.68	     $16089.62

Net Gain/Loss				  $3635.59	      (418.34)


				      la lojbangirz. Finances as of 1 January 1991

     Assets

     Cash in bank account				 $4276.02
     Undeposited checks					  $109.49
     Estimated Value of	Inventory			  $703.30
							 ________
     Net Assets						 $5089.51


     Liabilities

     Subscriber	Voluntary Balances Refundable
	  (See Attachment B)			       ($4550.36)
     Unpaid Legal Fees				       ($6360.00)
     VA	State Sales Tax	Collections			 ($12.83)
						       __________
     Net Liabilities				      ($10923.19)

     Estimated Net Worth			       ($5833.68)

     Estimated net worth at incorporation in 11/88 was	 $1427.02
     Estimated net worth on 1 January 1990 was		($737.04)

     The most significant component of our huge	drop in	net worth is the unfunded legal	liability.  Jeff Prothero and
Bob LeChevalier	have committed to funding this liability in full.  At our current expenditure rate, this will take about
2 years	to pay off.  With the February 1991 trademark ruling in	our favor, additional legal fees are expected to be
minimal.

							   5


	Subscription Accounts as of 1 January 1991	      Conversation sessions - After several delays while we
							    tried to find an optimal meeting day, Lojbanists in	the
  The mailing list of The Logical Language Group, Inc.	    Washington DC area have now	started	a weekly Lojban
consisted of 735 accounts.  Of these, 544 were currently    conversation/learning session.  A group of 6 Lojbanists of
active (level 0	or above).  Known readership is	about 50    varying skill levels has been meeting on Tuesday evenings
more than this,	due to multiple	readers	sharing	single sub- at Bob and Nora's house to use the language.  These	6 are
scriptions.  (The number has grown by over 35 in the first  Bob	and Nora, Athelstan, Sylvia Rutiser, Darren Stalder,
6 weeks	of 1991.)					    and	Keith Lynch.  Others have inquired and are expected to
  Payment rates	are highly correlated with level.  45-60%   join within	the next few weeks; if you are in or visiting
of those at level 1 or above maintain a	positive balance.   the	DC area	and want to drop in, contact Bob at 703-385-
Only 15% of the	level 0	recipients have	positive balances.  0273.  You needn't be especially skilled in	the language;
This is	not sufficient for long	term financial security;    none of the	rest of	us are,	either.	 From the experience
donations do not make up the difference	and no extra money  thus far, it is useful to know as much vocabulary as
is left	over for non-subscription activities.		    possible.  You'll pick up the grammar easily (sentence
  As of	14 February, there were	92 subscribers at level	3,  complexity tends to	be fairly simple), but a novice	will
100 at level 2,	55 at level 1, 332 at level 0, and 191 at   spend most of the time hunting through words lists in order
level B	for a total of 770.  About 20% of our subscribers   to follow what is being said.  (On the other hand, Keith,
are non-U.S., with about 1/2 of	these in Canada.	    who	is a relative novice, says that	he has learned some
							    words quickly simply by looking them up over and over.)
Sales or distributions of key products as of 1 January	      The emphasis during the sessions is on actual Lojban
1990:							    conversation, and no English is spoken for about 2 hours
							    (8-10PM).  Before and after	the 2-hour sessions, there are
gismu lists		 601				    discussions	of translation,	grammar	questions, and other
LogFlash/Mac LojFlash	 133				    things better handled in English.  We are hoping to
flash cards		  30				    eventually start regularly offering	a mini-lesson for new
Lessons	beyond Lesson 1	 127				    Lojbanists during the hour before the Lojban session.

  83 persons have donated a total of $13976.31 since	      Letter exchanges - Sylvia	has been working on one	other
incorporation (32/$7842.15 incorporation through end of	    aspect of bringing Lojban to life.	She has	written	to two
1989; 36/$5093.63 from before incorporation); 46 donors	    Lojbanists who have	written	to us in Lojban, and is	working
donated	during 1990, including $1529 each from Bob & Nora   on letters to a couple of others.  (If you write a letter
and from Jeff Prothero that was	applied	to legal fees;	    to us in Lojban, and include a translation so we can figure
others donated a net of	$3106.94.			    out	any errors, you	WILL get an answer, though we can't
							    promise how	quickly.)  Michael Helsem has written a
157 persons have net positive voluntary	balances.	    (complicated) letter on Lojban and poetry to Athelstan, as
542 persons have net negative voluntary	balances.	    well as several to Bob, and	Athelstan is working on	an
All others have	0 balances.				    answer.  Bob doesn't have time to respond to Lojban	letters
							    personally (except for really short	ones), and passes them
  13 people have balances >$100, 40 have balances >$50,	89  to Sylvia, who wants the practice.	Of course, if she
have balances >$20.  These are the people who are keeping   writes to you, please respond reasonably quickly so	that
us afloat.  We need a much higher percentage of	you in	    she	knows whether you understood any of her	writing.
these categories.
							      Translations and writings	- As shown in this issue, there
  Bob's	proposed budget	for 1991 (not yet approved by the   have also been several people working on writings and
Directors) presumes balance contributions of about $13400,  translations of various length and complexity.  In
legal donations	of $6600 from Bob and Nora and Jeff	    addition, Jamie Bechtel has	translated an Ursula Leguin
Prothero, $4800	in donations from the rest of you, and	    short story, which we plan to publish after	getting	a copy-
expenses of around $25600, for a net loss of $729.  To meet right release from the author.  Bob	has also intermittently
this budget, we	need as	many as	possible of you	to pay your worked on a	translation of the first chapter of Heinlein's
share (as appropriate for your mailing level); otherwise we The	Moon is	a Harsh	Mistress, but this also	needs a
will repeat last year's	financial crisis.		    copyright release.	He is also working on the initial story
							    of Burton's	Arabian	Nights (the Scheherazade story), which
							    is both not	copyrighted and	written	in the style of	the
		    Using the Language			    original Arabic, giving us a flavor	of translation other
							    than from English.	(It is obviously preferable to
  While	we have	been laying low	for 6 months, husbanding    translate things that are not copyrighted, or that the
our money carefully, the language has been progressing in   copyright has expired.  Sherlock Holmes or Lewis Carroll,
several	directions.  This section discusses progress in	    anyone?)
making Loglan/Lojban a living language.

							   6


  Carter translation - One translation project that has	    floor space.  Especially if	coming from out-of-town, we
been started, albeit slowly, is	the attempt to update two   recommend letting us know in advance that you are coming,
stories	by Jim Carter, originally written in 1984 in an	    how	many, and when you expect to arrive and	leave, so we
earlier	version	of Loglan, to fit the current language.	    can	plan logistics;	drop-ins are of	course welcome,	though.
These are full-fledged short stories, not just sentences or Based on previous years expenses, we ask for a voluntary
paragraphs, and	are quite a bit	longer than even the Saki   donation of	around $30 per person for the whole weekend to
short story translation	published in JL10.  The	first being cover food,	beverages, etc.	 Many give more, a few come who
worked on is called 'Akira', and is a science fiction	    cannot contribute.	(Money contributed on this weekend,
story; the other is called 'The	Welding	Shop'.		    unless specifically	noted, is considered a donation	towards
  We are trying	to involve as many people as possible in    LogFest expenses, and does not apply to voluntary bal-
this effort, each taking a sentence or a paragraph, or even ances.)
a couple of tanru.  Since the vocabulary has changed so	      We hope to see as	many Lojbanists	as possible at our
considerably since 1984, and Jim Brown's versions of the    activities this year.
language have had so many defective tanru, volunteers can
work on	problems as small as a single word.  For example,
in Sylvia Rutiser's translation	of the first paragraph of
the Akira story, printed later in this issue, she was quite		  Language Development Activities
dissatisfied with the tanru she	devised	for 'to	fall by
parachute'.  We	welcome	all suggestions	for this concept,     A	lot of work has	been done in the area of language
and any	others in that paragraph.  We also pose	another	    development, much of it by John Cowan, who in only several
paragraph for translation, which we ask	all of you to work  months has become the principal expert on the formal
on, again even if only a word or two.  Sylvia will compile  grammar (thus relieving Bob	of a major burden).
the results for	next issue.  As	more people become skilled
in the language, we can	pass out larger	chunks of the text.   Grammar baseline changes and BNF development - As
							    reported in	last issue, John aided in the final push for a
  LogFair - We had a get-together at Bob and Nora's house,  grammar baseline, devising new designs for MEX (the	grammar
the last weekend in October.  Turnout was small, and the    of mathematical expressions), the tense grammar, and the
discussion ranged over a wide area of topics.  A smaller    method of expressing letters and symbols.  We did an awful
version	of LogFest, we hope to hold future LogFairs at	    lot	of work	in only	a few weeks, and unfortunately,	not all
other locations	besides	the Washington DC area.		    of it was perfect.	John has found a few mistakes in
							    further analysis.
  Logfest 91 - The annual meeting of la	lojbangirz., and      Over the 6 months	since the baseline, John has
the associated celebration of Lojban, will be held a week   effectively	done a complete	analysis of the	grammar, almost
later this year	than in	previous years,	on the weekend of   from scratch.  He did this by developing an	alternative way
22-23 June 1991, at Bob	and Nora's house in the	suburban    of describing the grammar, using a method called Extended
Washington DC area.  (We officially start on Friday night   Backus-Naur	Form (E-BNF).  Unlike the YACC form of the
and end	on Monday morning, but those two days tend to be    grammar (YACC is a tool for	developing computer languages),
primarily social.)  The	schedule change	allows us to miss   published last issue, the E-BNF form is condensed and
several	competing activities that have prevented people	    considerably easier	to understand.	John's BNF grammar,
from coming in the past.  If you are planning to come and   enclosed with this issue, requires only 4 pages of standard
do not know how	to get here, contact us	by letter or phone  type.  The E-BNF grammar is	similar	to the baseline	machine
at the address or phone	given for la lojbangirz. (day or    grammar, including some minor proposals as described below.
evenings); we are on a major rapid transit line	and thus      The problem with an E-BNF	grammar	is that	it cannot be
easily accessible to all modes of transportation.	    verified as	unambiguous using YACC.	 This required a lot of
  The major design decisions about the language	having been checking and cross-checking.  In the process of doing this,
made before now, we are	hoping to shift	the emphasis of	our every rule of the grammar had to be	examined.  Some	things
gathering from language	design to language use and	    showed up as problems:
application.  There will thus be sessions on teaching and     -	errors made in the last	minute push for	a baseline,
learning the language, including demonstrations	of our	    sometimes only typos, other	times rules that were
teaching materials, Lojban conversation	for novices as well accidentally deleted;
as for more advanced students, group efforts at	Lojban	      -	asymmetries between similar structures in the grammar,
translation, etc.  There also may be discussion	of specific such as differing priority for logical connectives in
Lojban applications.  There will be a limited amount of	    compound bridi as compared to other	logical	connective
preplanned programming;	call us	the week before	the	    structures;
gathering to find out details.	On the other hand, most	      -	rules that were	clumsily constructed, often as fossils
activities will	be ad-hoc, determined by the interests of   of earlier versions	of the grammar when they were
those present at any given time.			    necessary.
  You can come for one day or the entire weekend; families    John also	volunteered to work on a Lojban	parser,	and in
are welcome.  Most attendees who spend the entire weekend,  thinking about the parser design, proposed some minor
bring sleeping bags or borrow blankets;	we have	plenty of   changes that would make the	design easier.

							   7


  As a result of all of	this analysis, John has	proposed 19 about 6 months before the dictionary is done.  John	Cowan
changes	to the baseline	grammar, of which 3 were withdrawn  is working on a catalog describing each selma'o and	its
after discussion.  The 16 that remain may sound	like a lot, grammar, with examples of each usage; this will not	be done
but each is very minor,	often affecting	only 1 or 2 rules   for	several	months.
of the roughly 600 in the YACC grammar baseline.  Even this
overstates the effect on the average Lojban student's	      Lack of gismu-making - There were	20 gismu approved or
learning effort.  Most of the changes are additions or	    proposed for making	at last	LogFest.  We had commitments
enhancements to	the language, and I doubt if any of the	    from several people	to help	with the source	language look-
grammar	changes	proposed affect	any text that has been	    up.	 Unfortunately,	some of	these people failed to come
written	thus far in the	language.  Thus, the language can   through.  As a result, we have only	partial	input on Hindi
be considered quite stable, though clearly the grammar is   source words and no	input at all on	Arabic sources.	 The
not quite as mature as the gismu list, now baselined for 2  other source language research has been ready for months.
1/2 years.						    We are pursuing other alternate researchers, and ask any
  The changes are described along with their purpose and    members of the community who know either language to
justification in an article below.  The	principal design    volunteer your assistance either to	suggest	source words or
group has looked over these changes and	accepted them, but  check others work.	(You should have a bilingual dictionary
publication of the proposals is	a necessary step for a	    if you are not fluent in the language.)
baseline change.  Thus you have	an opportunity to comment     Because of this, the words have not been constructed, and
or ask questions about these changes, prior to a formal	    we have downgraded the priority of producing a revised
approval decision, expected at or before LogFest.  Anyone   gismu list incorporating the new words and updated and
who has	worked in depth	with the grammar, and wants to see  clarified place structures for each	word.
the specific rule changes proposed, may	write or send a
computer-mail message to us, and we'll be happy	to provide    Place structure review - In conjunction with the addition
it.							    of words to	the gismu list,	we have	been conducting	a slow
  There	may be additional changes at this very low level up review of the place	structure of every word	in the gismu
until the completion of	the textbook and dictionary.  These list.  The review includes updates of Roget's Thesaurus
will be	as a result of actual usage or problems	discovered  categories for each	word; Athelstan	did a rough-cut	at as-
as a result of finally having a	parser incorporating the    signing these categories while we were reviewing the list
complete set of	rules.	However, you shouldn't get the idea for	baseline over 2	years ago.  An effort is being made to
that the language is unstable because of these changes,	    ensure that	place structures are consistent	for words in
requiring a significant	effort at relearning, since they    the	same Roget category.
will almost certainly be changes in seldom-used	features of   You can hardly imagine the difficulty of this review; it
the language.  Ju'i Lobypli will continue to publish such   takes total	mastery	of the gismu list to do	a comprehensive
proposals as they are presented	and preliminarily approved. check, and only Bob	has achieved that.  Others are
							    reviewing pieces of	the list, and Bob is checking their
  cmavo	list - As part of John Cowan's review, a couple	of  suggestions.  (All readers are encouraged to pose questions
lexemes	(word grammatical categories) have been	eliminated, and	suggestions about place	structures, and	these will be
and the	associated cmavo freed.	 (As a side note, we will   considered.)  Of course Bob's higher priority is textbook
be trying to phase out use of the word 'lexeme'	for these   writing, but the review must be completed before the
categories, in favor of	the Lojban word	"selma'o", (from se textbook is	done, since we don't want to have examples with
cmavo) or cmavo	word category.	'Lexeme', used by Jim Brown inconsistent place structures.
and adopted by everyone	else, turns out	to be an incorrect    Remember that place structures will be a long-evolving
linguistic term	for the	concept	- the appropriate term is   part of the	language, and will not even be considered
really 'grameme'.  But since few people	know these jargon   baselined at dictionary publication	(though	publication of
terms anyway, we would rather use the non-jargon Lojban	    a dictionary will inherently make changes much more
word.)							    difficult).	 This is because the place structures
  As a result of two place structure changes, we had to	    implicitly contain the meaning of the words, meanings that
make some minor	changes	to associated gismu in selma'o BAI, will never be static, and cannot truly be defined until
and to add one new cmavo to that selma'o.  A couple of	    there are significant numbers of language users.
additional words were independently proposed, for various     On the other hand, none of us who	are speaking, writing,
reasons.						    or translating in Lojban have been significantly hindered
  Since	the cmavo list has NOT been baselined, the changes  by nebulous	place structures.  We make the best guess we
listed later in	this issue are approved	and now	in force    can, and use paraphrases if	a listener doesn't understand,
(although some of them are technically dependent on	    thus bypassing any confusion.
approval of the	grammar	baseline change).  We provide the     Thus, we have demonstrated what we have often claimed,
list on	a separate page	for people who wish to attach it to YOU	DO NOT NEED TO MEMORIZE	THE PLACE STRUCTURES TO	USE
their cmavo lists.  Alternatively (and probably		    LOJBAN.  As	you use	the language, you will master them
preferably), you can manually update your copy of the cmavo practically	by osmosis, making mistakes and	then learning
lists to reflect these changes.	 No new	publication of the  from them.	But mistakes are useful, too; they help	us
cmavo list is expected prior to	a preliminary baseline	    define the weak points in the place	structures, and	in some

							   8


cases indicate that normal usage of a word differs from	the long-winded, so we cannot even hope	to summarize them here.
place structure	that we	devised.			    Two	major topics in	the last couple	of months have been the
							    expression of intervals, the possible need for special
  gismu	making errors of the past - As a side project, late tenses to describe relativistic situations,	and the	desire
at night or when he can't concentrate (seemingly much too   by some readers for	a formal theory	describing the seman-
often it seems), Bob has been going back through the	    tics of the	language.  Discussions on these	topics
computer outputs that generated	the gismu 3 years ago, an   continue, and we are archiving everything that is said.  If
extracting the scores and etymologies that led to the	    you	have particular	interest in one	of these topics, let us
current	word being chosen.  The	project	is roughly half	    know, and we may discuss it	in more	detail,	or offer a
done.							    special-order publication consisting of transcripts	of the
  Along	the way, unfortunate discoveries have occurred.	 In discussion.
about 5% of the	words, some type of manual error was made
in the rush to compile the list.  In half of these or so,
the error is insignificant:  an	erroneous score	or cross-	       Products	Status,	Prices,	and Ordering
reference error.  In the rest, often due to Bob's sloppy
handwriting or typos, the word recorded	for a concept was     We have no new products to announce this issue, although
not the	highest	scoring	one.  In most cases, the word	    significant	progress was made on several that will
actually selected differs by only one character	from what   hopefully come to fruition within the next several months.
it should be, but given	the nature of the scoring	      A	reminder that our pricing policy includes a 20%
algorithm, this	sometimes leads	to a significantly lower    discount for a prepaid order over $20 (prepaid = positive
recognition score.					    balance exceeding the price	at the time of shipment).
  In short, we screwed up sometimes.  The result is not	a   There is a 20% surcharge for non-North-American orders; the
severe problem,	and changing the words wasn't even	    20%	discount on large prepaid orders will cancel the
considered - the actual	etymologies of individual words	is  overseas surcharge.	 The overseas surcharge	may have to
simply not that	important to any of Loglan's goals.  The    rise due to	increased postal fees, but not until at	least
only requirement is for	neutrality.  Since the errors are   next issue.	 Virginia orders should	add 4.5% sales tax.
small in number	and fairly random, the only effect is a	    Note also that for software, there is no surcharge for MS-
trivial	increase in learning difficulty.  And this increase DOS	3 1/2" diskettes, but you must specify in your order if
is real	only if	the recognition	scores used to decide on    you	want them.
the words actually do correlate	with learnability of the      We cannot	promise	to fill	an order unless	it is prepaid;
words.							    our	finances remain	too thin.
  A more systematic error was found in our Lojban
transcription of Russian words.	 Though	the check has only    Textbook - One effort that has not made much progress has
been cursory, it appears that in several cases,	we made	    been the Lojban textbook.  About 45	pages were done	by
mistakes in Lojbanizing	the Russian vowels, which	    LogFair in late October, but almost	no work	has been done
frequently change in sound depending on	the declension,	and since then.	 There are a lot of reasons for	this, but in
on the syllable	stress.	 As a result, the Russian con-	    the	final analysis Bob simply hasn't managed to treat this
tribution to some words	will be	incorrect, and learning	for effort as the highest priority, as he and everyone else
Russian	students of Lojban presumably slightly more	    want.  Too many short-term distractions and	emergencies.
difficult.  Again, though, the effect is not expected to be If blame must be placed, most of us	have some part in the
significant, and we have data that will	allow us to	    delay; the final responsibility is,	however, Bob's.
accurately measure the effect, if any of this systematic    Hopefully, things are improving in this regard.
error.	(Lojbanization of Russian words	inherently has	      LogFlash - The news on LogFlash is a good	as the news on
systematic errors due to declensions that shift	and	    the	textbook is bad.  A version of LogFlash	capable	of
sometimes omit sounds.)					    handling the August	cmavo list turned out to be almost
  Once the computer lists have been verified, we will make  trivial to produce.	 (This version is currently called
the etymologies	available in hard copy or electronic form.  LogFlash 3,	but the	set may	be renumbered before
Data is	being stored in	Lojbanized phonetic spelling.  We   publication).  Bob has gone	through	all of the words using
do not plan in the short term to publish a list	showing	the this program and is	working	in Maintenance mode at
actual source words, primarily because we would	need	    mastering the set.
special	text fonts and alphabets on our	computers.	      Meanwhile	Nora has been working on the enhanced revision
However, a sample of the intermediate work appears in a	    to LogFlash, which will handle the updated gismu list (with
later article this issue.  This	effort is a low	priority    100	character definitions instead of 40 character ones),
one, though how	much time we spend on it will partly depend and	add a wide variety of new features, described in previ-
on how much interest is	shown by you readers.		    ous	issues.	 The program will also provide the capability
							    to log data	needed for research into the language learning
  Computer Network Discussions - There have been numerous   process, including a test of Jim Brown's recognition score
discussions of Lojban's	design on the lojban-list computer  algorithm.
mailing	network, which now has over 100	readers.  These	are   Nora's update is mostly complete,	and the	program	is
generally highly specialized discussions, and often rather  being tested by a couple of	Lojban students, most notably

							   9


Sylvia Rutiser,	who has	gone through the gismu list in only lines of code and is non-trivial to	convert.  We are thus
a few weeks and	is working on her second pass.		    not	planning to distribute the LogFlash source.  Conversion
  The changes to support cmavo list learning with the new   volunteers should know both	Turbo-Pascal and C and the
version	are just as easy as for	the old	version, and Sylvia problems in	converting from	the former to the latter.
is also	nearly through her first pass on the cmavo using    There is a lot of input/output processing, and the last
this program.  The results of using LogFlash have proven    (and most successful) conversion effort stalled out	on con-
awesome	when we	sit down on Tuesday evenings to	speak in    verting this processing.
the language.  Bob and Sylvia only rarely need to look at a
word list, while those who haven't studied the words spend    Parser - As noted	above, John Cowan has started working
a lot of time paging through the lists.			    on a Lojban	parser which will reflect the baseline grammar.
  We hope to have gismu	list and cmavo list versions of	    This much-awaited software will finally allow us to	do the
LogFlash available by LogFest in June, or perhaps the next  proper test	of the grammar that is needed, as well as
Ju'i Lobypli issue thereafter.	A rafsi	list version will   provide an excellent teaching tool to students of the lan-
probably wait an additional few	months;	we have	yet to	    guage with appropriate computers.  John expects to have the
receive	any reports that anyone	besides	Bob and	Nora have   parser available for testing by LogFest in June.  Priority
started	studying the rafsi using the existing LogFlash 2.   for	test copies will be for	people with highly positive
  All of these updates are for PC-compatible MS-DOS	    balances and those who have	actually been writing in the
machines.  Dave	Cortesi	is working on an update	to his	    language.  General distribution will of course depend on
Hypercard program equivalent for the MacIntosh;	we have	had how	testing	goes.
no discussions with Richard Kennaway regarding an update to
his MacIntosh version, since the Hypercard version, while a   Other Software - The random sentence generator update has
bit slower in execution	speed, uses the	Mac voice	    been held up pending John Cowan's grammar change proposals,
synthesizer function to	provide	spoken Lojban along with    discussed elsewhere	in this	issue.	David Bowen reports a
the flash cards.  We expect Dave's program to be available  simple equivalent program using the	UNIX-based AWK
at approximately the same time as the PC LogFlash version.  language; write to us for details if interested.  There
  Efforts to produce a UNIX C version of LogFlash appear to have been no changes to the	lujvo-making program, which may
have stalled out, and given the	closeness of the new PC	    be integrated with the future version of LogFlash 2	(rafsi-
version	will likely be delayed until after it is complete.  teaching).
We get lots of volunteers to make this conversion (for UNIX
and other machines), but few if	any have ever produced	      Software Pricing - Software is the only product la
anything.  The new program is over 4000			    lojbangirz.	produces right now that	we make	any significant
							    profit on.	Thus, we need significant sales	of these items
							    to help cover all the people who aren't paying for our pro-
							    ducts.  Indeed, our	financial troubles last	year were no
							    doubt in part due to very low software sales and our lack
							    of new products in this area.
							      Because of our financial situation, we cannot distribute
							    our	software for free.  If we get more of you to pay for
							    the	printed	matter,	we can reconsider this,	but no change
							    is likely until well after textbook	publication.  We may
							    continue to	offer the old software more liberally,
							    recognizing	that it	will be	obsolete and much inferior to
							    the	new version.  This will	allow us to support those who
							    can't afford to pay	but want to learn the language,	while
							    providing significant value	to our paying customers.
							    Exceptions,	if any,	will be	for people who perform
							    volunteer efforts valuable enough that someone else	donates
							    money to cover the cost of their copy, or who demonstrate
							    by trying to use the language that our support of their use
							    of LogFlash	will bring results.
							      When the new versions of the program come	out, there will
							    be a substantial discount (at least	50%) for upgrades from
							    people who have the	program	and a positive balance.	 People
							    who	have contributed money but do not have a positive bal-
							    ance may receive a lesser discount.	 As always, prepaid
							    orders over	$20 will gain a	20% discount.
							      Comments on this policy are welcome.
							      (Note that old versions of LogFlash are still available
							    as Shareware on the	Amrad BBS - see	the introductory
							    brochure for the telephone number.	We would of course

							   10


prefer that you	register and pay for this software, getting design on some publications	as well, after computerizing
the latest version, but	have no	complaint if those who	    it,	and see	what people think.  Thus we have two logos,
cannot pay obtain the program in this way.  We will pro-    which were opposed by only 2 people	among the voters.
bably continue to offer	a less-advanced	Shareware version     A	couple of people sent in new designs after the ballot
of LogFlash for	the indefinite future, since the principle  was	produced, and I	unfortunately missed one by Kerry
of mass	distribution of	language information is	a	    Pearson in preparing the ballot.  But we needed to have a
fundamental one	for la lojbangirz.)			    final decision, and	these will be the logos	for at least
							    the	next few years.
  Postal Rates - The recent increase in	US Postal Rates	was   A	few people voted for none of the selections, indicating
between	15 and 20%.  This amounts to 1-2 cents/page added   a misunderstanding of the purpose of the logo 'contest'.
to our production costs.  This renders our temporary price  These people identified "logos" with commercialism,	and
increase of last summer	necessarily permanent -	it is not   wanted us to have a	less commercial	image.	A couple
yet clear whether we are selling materials for more than we suggested that instead we devise a "logo" that was more of
pay for	them.  If not, you can expect a	price rise next	    a slogan, perhaps graphically displayed.  This isn't
issue, probably	to 12 cents/page US/Canada and 15	    practical for a few	reasons:
cents/page overseas; we'll continue to absorb the slight      -	the logo is intended to	be a symbol and	graphic	images
difference between US and Canadian postage costs.	    make better	symbols	than text, however it is displayed.
  We are considering going to second-class mailing for Ju'i "Logo" is a	shortening of "logograph", which more clearly
Lobypli	and/or le lojbo	karni, though possibly not for a    indicates its purpose;
few months.  For a relatively small cost difference, we	      -	among other places, the	logo will probably be used on
would get better speed of delivery and more assurance that  the	textbook, where	there will already be plenty of	text
you will actually get the issue.  Mailing in the same class (the title,	subtitle, and the 'blurb on the	back').	 The
as junk	mail is	risky.					    purpose of the logo	is to leave a strong image that	stands
  One requirement of second-class mailing is demonstration  out	against	all that writing;
that most of our readership actually wants to receive the     -	there is a commercial purpose to the logo.  It is a
publication.  The best way to prove this is with paid	    symbol for la lojbangirz. as well as, and possibly more
subscriptions, with explicit letters also valuable.  Thus   than, for the language (this unfortunately may not have
it is important	that we	hear from you regularly, preferably been in the	minds of the designers and voters, but,	oh
with money; at least once per year is very desirable.	    well).  While we are a non-profit organization, we must
							    operate as a business, sending out correspondence, fund-
  9-digit Zip -	The new	rates also come	with new rules,	    raising letters, etc.  The logo, printed by	computer with
though we aren't yet certain just what these rules are.	 It our	letterhead, will enhance the visual appearance of our
is possible that we will need to use Zip+4 9-digit codes on business correspondence, calling attention to our letter.
our US mailings	to get optimal postage rates, and possibly  (At	least this is how the theory goes.)
even to	get assured delivery.  Thus, whenever you send us a   -	a slogan in any	language other than Lojban (such as
change of address, please tell us the Zip+4 number as soon  English) would suggest a bias toward that language,	and we
as you know it.						    are	fighting hard to avoid such biases.  If	the text were
							    in Lojban, non-Lojbanists (and some	inactive supporters)
  Rhyming Dictionaries - Michael Helsem	announces	    wouldn't know what it means, making	it a less meaningful
availability of	Lojban gismu rhyming dictionaries for	    symbol than	the words might	intend;
prospective poets.  Price $5 ea.  Specify normal or half-     -	we already have	a Lojban slogan	of a sort.  Claude Van
rhyme versions.	 Send to Michael Helsem, 1031 DeWitt Circle Horne coined ".e'osai ko sarji la lojban." a couple	of
Dallas TX 75224.					    years ago, and we have produced and	distributed
			 Publicity			    calligraphic buttons with that slogan as well as used it on
							    many of our	publications.  We are of course	interested in
  Logo - Surprisingly to me at least, there was	a clear	    more Lojban	slogans	and aphorisms, but this	requires you to
winner in the logo balloting from Ju'i Lobypli #13.  The    make them up, and the issue	is any case separate from the
selected logo was supposed to be on this issue;	maybe next  logo issue.
time.  The winner, designed by Guy Garnett, received a
large majority of positive votes among the 35-40 ballots      Electronic Distribution -	We have	had a committee	non-
received before	the October deadline, and was first choice  working on a policy	for electronic distribution of our
on many	of them.  In fact, only	5 ballots were marked as    materials since LogFest.  For various reasons, the
disliking the selection.  Of these 5, 3	were in	favor of    committee pretty much fell apart within a couple of	weeks,
the 2nd	place finisher (a distant 2nd, but with	far more    and	efforts	to get the effort going	again have so far been
'likes'	than 'dislikes').  This	2nd place logo,	the in-	    to no avail.  Athelstan did	write up his mini-lesson, which
tersecting planes design by Jamie Bechtel, apparently	    will be a centerpiece of the electronic material to	be
suffered some vote loss	from being hand-drawn compared to   distributed; we hope this will be finalized	for publication
Guy's polished computer-generated images.  (Almost all	    with JL15.	Thereafter, all	non-paying people above	level 0
negative votes on this design also voted against all other  will have to demonstrate their interest by attempting to
hand-drawn designs.)  As a result, we intend to	try this    complete the exercises in the mini-lesson.

							   11


  There	has been considerable debate about the extent of    financial and political quagmire that nearly killed	Loglan
things to be distributed.  Ju'i	Lobypli	issues and the	    in the 1980's before Bob and others	started	the Lojban
textbook are nearly impossible to put on-line, even with a  effort.
file server, because so	much of	the text is formatted and     Now we've	again caught the interest of the academic
relies on greater than 80-column lines.	 This issue, for    community, and are taking measures to ensure that
example, is over 400K bytes of data.  We are also reluctant Loglan/Lojban is taken seriously and treated with respect.
to post	non-baselined language description materials since  This first sci.lang	discussion was the critical milestone.
we have	no way to ensure that people eventually	get updates In the special section on Lojban and Linguistics below,
when the baseline occurs.  Word	lists, the machine grammar, John Cowan has done	a superb effort	at editing and
the brochure, and Athelstan's mini-lesson are likely to	be  condensing the non-linear discussion into what seems like a
available initially.  I	won't promise a	date for an	    lively conversation, loaded	with important ideas and
electronic package because it is pretty	much out of my	    detailed examples of Lojban.
hands as long as the committee exists; it is likely that      John then	followed up this discussion by re-examining the
the package will be available after LogFest in late June.   old	Zwicky review.	While it is far	too late to directly
							    answer the critique	in Language, John drafted a response to
  Computer Network - With help from John Cowan and Keith    the	key challenges posed by	Zwicky,	demonstrating that the
Lynch and Eric Raymond (who supports lojban-list and John's Lojban design fully	meets Zwicky's challenge.  This
and Bob's computer accounts), Lojban has been highly	    response is	also printed in	the special section below, and
visible	on the UNIX-oriented Usenet/Internet computer	    will shortly be posted to sci.lang.
network, providing us with worldwide communications with      The second discussion stemmed from a comparative
our supporters,	and highly successful recruiting.  We have  discussion of artificial languages,	concentrating on
been especially	visible	in an electronic news/discussion    Esperanto and Ido.	Nick Nicholas, an Australian
group called "sci.lang", which is a major focus	for	    Esperantist, posted	a Suzanne Vega song translated into
linguistics professionals, researchers,	and students,	    several artificial languages (later	added to by Ivan
worldwide.  In particular, Lojban has come up as the	    Derzhanski), whereupon Bob joined in with a	Lojban version.
principal topic	of discussion during two periods of several These translations,	and some associated discussion,	appear
weeks during the last 6	months.	 (Discussions in these	    in le lojbo	se ciska in this issue.	 A few of the Lojban-
groups tend to flow from topic to topic	forming	a highly    related postings are also included,	with more planned for
intertwined set	of 'threads of discussion', which	    next issue (since the discussion continues).
eventually fade	out as people turn to new topics that have    We received several compliments for our direct support of
caught their attention.	 Thus, Lojban has been mentioned    discussions	on the network.	 Loglan	continues its trend as
several	times in connection with several topics, but the    being the first 'successful' artificial language to	have
'thread' caught	people's attention twice in particular.)    its	development process openly observed and	participated in
  In the first instance, Lojban	(and Loglan in general)	    by the academic community.
came up	as a result of a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Hy-    Both network discussions were quite productive in	terms
pothesis.  John	Cowan stepped into the discussion, and then of recruiting - we've added	over 50	people as a result.
Bob 'weighed in' in response to	some fairly critical	    Nick (a Greek native) and Ivan (a Bulgarian	native)	have
challenges from	linguists.  Much to our	pleasure, Lojban    both expressed interest in learning	Lojban;	Nick has
withstood this first challenge from the	linguistic academic expressed especial interest	in joining our growing group of
community, gaining respect from	several	people and a will-  Lojban poets.
ingness	on their part to see how the project develops
scientifically.						      ApaLingua, Tand and Factsheet Five - Lojban continues to
  Given	the disastrous history of Loglan's relationship	    appear on occasion in the amateur and alternative press.
with the academic community, this was welcome indeed.	    Mike Gunderloy reviews each	of our issues in Factsheet
While attracting interest from several linguistic academics Five, and a	recent issue (incidentally the first one to
in the 1960's, the first publication of	Loglan 1 drew a	    mention Institute publications) gave us our	largest	crop of
critical review	from Professor Arnold Zwicky, in a 1969	is- new	Lojbanists yet,	over a dozen.  This, coupled with the
sue of Language, one of	the foremost linguistics journals.  sci.lang discussions and our continuing word-of-mouth
While this review was a	friendly, constructive critique	    spread led to almost 1 new person per day throughout the
(this intent was confirmed in a	recent letter exchange	    first two months of	1991.
between	Bob and	Dr. Zwicky, now	a leader in the	field of      An amateur publication on	linguistics, a sort of printed
language typology), Dr.	Brown apparently took its	    sci.lang, has been started,	and several Lojbanists are
challenges as highly negative.				    among the participants.  ApaLingua is published bi-monthly,
  For whatever reason, the review went unanswered, and	    and	consists of several pages written and submitted	by each
Loglan has suffered for	20 years as a result.  The	    of the subscribers.	 Like the computer networks, each per-
Institute's attempts to	get funding from the National	    son	poses new topics for discussion	and responds to	the
Science	Foundation were	rejected, with several peer	    writings of	others.	 There were over 30 contributors at the
reviewers citing the unanswered	critique.  Dr. Brown	    time of the	sample issue Bob received in November, and it
eventually gave	up on the academic community and tried to   was	clear that the group would be expanding	rapidly.  la
"go commercial", a disaster that led in	turn to	the	    lojbangirz.	intends	to participate in ApaLingua, but at

							   12


this point Bob has had too many	irons in the fire, and has  3rd	issue, appearing after JL13, included a	lot of reader
committed to making substantial	progress on the	textbook    feedback, some positive and	more negative.	We've pretty
before adding this one.					    much decided to see	where these discussions	lead before
  Tand,	another	amateur	publication has	had discussions	of  responding further.	 Tand comes out	infrequently, and the
Lojban for the last 3 issues.  The			    type of comments being raised are best answered by people
							    looking at our publications	to avoid our repeating (to
							    editor Mark	Manning's great	distaste) large	quantities of
							    the	same type of thing that	appears	here in	JL.

							      Evecon and Arisia	- la lojbangirz. participated in this
							    year's edition of Evecon, the largest science fiction
							    convention here in the Washington DC area.	Bob, Nora, and
							    Athelstan gave several talks during	the New	Years weekend,
							    and	staffed	a booth	that provided information about	Lojban.
							      Meanwhile, Coranth D'Gryphon attended Arisia, a February
							    Boston area	science	fiction	convention.  Several new people
							    signed up, making it the most successful convention
							    recruiting effort yet among	those not attended by Bob and
							    Nora.  Coranth is planning to follow this effort up	with a
							    class this spring taught through an	MIT extension program.

							      GURT - Bob and Athelstan are planning to attend the
							    Georgetown University Round	Table of Linguistics, an annual
							    event of significant stature in the	linguistics community.
							    A focus of this year's meetings, the first week of April,
							    is on language acquisition and education.  We are planning
							    to use these meetings to expand our	contacts with members
							    of the linguistic community, and move towards an
							    examination	by that	community of the potential value for
							    Lojban in linguistic research and language education.

							      Another Trip:  Will This One Happen? - Bob and Nora have
							    been promising themselves a	trip to	California for two
							    years now (Bob grew	up in the San Francisco	area), but it
							    always seemed to be	another	2 months away; there always
							    seemed to be another deadline.  THIS time we're a bit more
							    optimistic,	and are	planning a late	April trip to the Bay
							    Area.  We'll probably be able to come for a	week and
							    associated weekends.  This one should really come off,
							    since Nora's boss is encouraging her to take an April
							    vacation.  Occasional considerations of a side trip	to Los
							    Angeles and	San Diego are being set	aside; too many	trips
							    have been cancelled	because	of excess ambition (and	Nora
							    needs a REAL vacation).
							      Our intent is to give several talks on Lojban while
							    there, both	to existing Lojbanists and to potential
							    recruits.  We want to meet as many of you as possible, so
							    try	to set aside a little time for us.  We badly need
							    volunteers to help us organize these meetings, and provide
							    or locate places we	can get	together.  Call	Bob immediately
							    - (703) 385-0273 - if you can help,	given the short	time
							    frame.  We will try	to put out a notice by mail a week or
							    two	ahead of time indicating our itinerary.	 Since Bob has
							    sisters in the Santa Cruz and mid-Peninsula	areas, and
							    close friends in Berkeley, these are definite stops	for at
							    least a night or two each.

							      Athelstan	Finally	Makes a	Trip - After two trips in two
							    years being	cancelled at the last minute, Athelstan	says he
							    will not promise trips in advance again.  As a result (so

							   13


he suspects), things finally started going right.  After    who	have never responded, we must hear from	you by the next
over a year and	a half with one	car problem after another,  issue of JL	in early May, or you will be dropped to	level
he got his car mobile enough to	make it	out of the DC area. '0'.  If you have responded, but not in the	past year, we
Indeed,	he made	it all the way to Salt Lake City, where	he  still want to hear from you, but can allow you support down
stayed a couple	weeks with Lojbanist Diane Lehmann and got  to US$-50 before taking action to cut our losses.  If your
her started learning the language.  (He	then rebuilt his    balance is below US$-50, we	need to	hear from you by the
car as he drove	home, having packed a spare part for	    next JL issue, at minimum, to keep sending at this level.
everything and finding he needed most of those spares.	      Ideally, as many as possible will	send some money, even
ba'u)							    if not enough to fully cover our costs.  We're doing our
							    best to subsidize non-US Lojbanists, but we	need your help.
  Press	Release	- In February, following the legal victory  Please respond.
discussed under	Institute News below, la lojbangirz. put
out its	first press release.  This news	release, a copy	of    Non-English Materials - We now have French, Italian, and
which appears after this news section, went to over 300	    Esperanto translations of the "What	is Lojban? la lojban.
members	of the business	and scientific press.  The response mo"	brochure.  The latter two are still only in the
thus far has been small, but with the world situation as    roughest of	drafts,	not even correctly typed in.  We need
lively as it has been, we wouldn't expect to be	an	    volunteers to work with our	translations, to polish	them,
immediate priority.  Also, since each response is likely to to put them	into computerized formats, and to add to the
turn into a news or magazine story, a few responses will go list of languages.
a long way.

									      News From	the Institute
		    International News
							      Trademark	- The most significant news regarding The
  Canadian checks OK - After having three of them make it   Loglan Institute, Inc. is that la lojbangirz. has won its
through	our bank with no problem and no	service	charge,	I   challenge of TLI's trademark registration of the name
am happy to tell our Canadian friends that we can accept    'Loglan'.  The decision was	rendered in 'summary
checks in Canadian currency if it is difficult or expensive judgement';	the issues were	sufficiently clear-cut that
to get US currency checks.  We deposit the check, and the   there was no need for a trial.  Following are excerpts from
bank then adjusts the deposit for the exchange rate about a the	decision.  la lojbangirz. is 'Petitioner' and The In-
week later, which seems	to be within a few cents of the	    stitute is 'Respondent':
standard rate.
  Remember that	for other countries, we	can accept a check
on your	non-US bank in your currency, but there	is a
service	charge of US$3.50.  We can also	accept Master Card
and Visa balance contributions with a service charge of	6%.

  Athelstan's European trip aborted - In JL13, we reported
that there were	last minute problems threatening to cancel
Athelstan's planned trip to the	Netherlands World Science
Fiction	convention, and	then around several countries of
Europe.	 The problems continued	to grow, and Athelstan's
then-dead car made it impossible for him to get	around and
solve them.  So	he didn't go.  We are still hoping to have
some Lojbanist make it to Europe in the	next couple of
years, but I think we're going to avoid	promises until
there is something definite.

  Non-North American Lojbanists	and the	Fund-raising Drive
- The November fund raising letter did not go to our
overseas friends.  Except for US and Canada subscribers,
the postage cost was too high for the potential	gain.
Instead, we are	sending	those people who were on the list
in November a somewhat modified	form of	the letter,
representing the slightly different circumstances and our
more liberal policy in support of non-North American
Lojbanists.  Note that balances	reflected in the letters do
not include the	price of this issue.
  Simply put, for those	JL subscribers with balances (in
November when the letters were prepared) less than US$-30

							   14


  "The facts of	record clearly establish petitioner's	    port the decision were provided by The Institute on	its
genuine	interest in the	subject	matter of the proceeding    own, possible bases	for appeal are minimal.
and support a reasonable belief	that petitioner	will be	      We thus consider the legal cloud on the language to be
damaged	by the continued existence of the registration	    lifted.  Threats of	legal action by	The Institute,
sought to be cancelled..."				    originally against Bob and Jeff Prothero (before la
  "...both respondent and petitioner have filed	documents   lojbangirz.	was incorporated), have	been retracted or
evidencing use of the term LOGLAN as the generic name or    rendered invalid through this decision.  People can	use the
the common descriptive name of a language developed by Dr.  name Loglan	public-ally without fear of legal challenge;
James Cooke Brown.  Even Dr. Brown uses	the term as the	    our	success	should cause TLI to have second	thoughts before
name of	the language...	 There is apparently a community of engaging in	further	legal harassment.  The legal action was
persons	interested in the development of the language who   expensive (we intend NOT to	pursue TLI for reimbursement of
have conducted very active communications with one another  legal expenses, in the interest of ending the dispute), and
and without exception they use the term	Loglan to refer	to  it certainly has distracted	Bob and	others from more useful
the language, not as a trademark for the grammars and	    endeavors on behalf	of the language	(Bob may have put as
dictionaries which contain the words that make up, and	    much as 6 man-months into legal-related research that could
information pertaining to, the construction of the	    have gone into textbook writing).
language. ... In addition to the foregoing, we note that      The battle is over.  It is time to move ahead, and to
the Acronyms, Initialisms & Abbreviations Dictionary Ninth  settle the war.  Bob has written to	Dr. Brown, proposing a
Edition, 1985-1986, lists the term, "loglan" and defines it settlement between our two efforts that would result in
as "logical language" ...				    unity of the Loglan	Project	behind a Lojban	recognized by
  "... the evidence indicates that it was not until 1985    Brown as a legitimate version of Loglan.  The offer
that respondent	first expressed	the view that LOGLAN was    includes generous incentives towards unity that will en-
its trademark. ... Prior to that time, the term	was used by hance Dr. Brown's influence	and stature in the community,
Dr. Brown, respondent and others simply	as the designation  and	aid TLI	in performing the Loglan research for which it
for the	developing language, although it is reasonable to   was	originally founded.  la	lojbangirz. would be the
conclude that Dr. Brown	and the	Institute may have	    principal interface	with the community and the world,
mistakenly believed that such use by others was	with	    working to gain acceptance and support for the language.
recognition of their purported proprietary rights.	    If accepted, Loglan	would become the first major artificial
  "In view of the foregoing, it	is our opinion that LOGLAN, language project to	mend a split, giving us	added
being a	generic	term, does not function	as a trademark for  credibility	in convincing the world	of Loglan's value.  In
respondent's goods.					    addition, our combined resources would get more and	better
  "... petitioner's motion for summary judgement ... is	    quality work accomplished in less time.
granted	as to the issue	of the generic nature of the term     We ask readers who have also supported The Institute to
LOGLAN.	 The petition for cancellation is granted and the   write to Dr. Brown and encourage him to move towards such a
registration will be cancelled in due course."		    settlement.

  We had filed on several other	grounds, including	      JCB's finances, TLI Fund-Raiser Fails - As a footnote to
fraudulent filing of the application for the trademark due  the	legal decision,	Dr. Brown reported in his latest Lognet
to the several false statements	therein	and abandonment	    newsletter that he suffered	a serious personal financial
through	failure	to continually use the term as a trademark. setback.  As a result, he no longer	can financially	support
The fraud claim	was denied because we did not prove "fraud- The	Institute.  Indeed, he had to take a large portion of
ulent misconduct accompanied by	some element of	willfulness the	Institute's recent income to pay himself back in
or bad faith".	The abandonment	claim was declared moot	    preference to using	that money to further promote his
since the term wasn't a	valid trademark	in the first place. version of the language.
  Lest there be	any doubt, I/we	have nothing personal	      This setback was coupled with a fund raising drive that
against	Dr. Brown.  Indeed, we honor his genius	in creating coincidentally occurred at about the same time as our own.
the language.  We believe his policies have been mistaken   Dr.	Brown sought donations sufficient to pay for another
and have as a result stultified	the progress of	the	    Scientific American	advertisement, a cost of $3500.
language, but this assertion didn't need a legal battle	to  Apparently,	less than half that amount was raised.	This is
be resolved.  One only needs to	observe	the astounding	    probably a good thing for TLI, since Dr. Brown projected a
relative success la lojbangirz.	has had	in promoting Loj-   gain of perhaps 150	new people from	this advertising, an
ban, which IS Loglan in	every sense of the word, through    expense of over $20	per person - as	much as	the price of
our more liberal policies.  (During the	last three years,   the	book he	is selling.
we have	outgrown the Institute by a large measure in spite    We note that several of the large	donors Dr. Brown listed
of the republication of	Loglan 1 by TLI	and several	    contributed	comparable amounts in our own fund raising
thousand dollars in advertising	by TLI.)		    drive.  We did raise the $3500 and more in our effort, and
  The Institute	can appeal the trademark decision, but such are	putting	it towards producing more and better
appeals	historically have been considered frivolous, unless information	about the language.  Bob and Nora, and other
buoyed by significant new evidence.  Since this	decision    major contributors,	have made donations rather than	loans.
was based on a matter of law, and sufficient facts to sup-  As a result, la lojbangirz.	is relatively debt-free	(we

							   15


technically owe	our subscribers	their balances,	and Bob,      This is probably all that	can really be done at this
Nora, and Jeff Prothero	have pledged donations against the  point.  Until we have a community of fluent	speakers,
legal debt).  Dr. Brown	meanwhile claims an enormous	    Lojban will	lack credibility among professionals in	several
financial debt from the	Institute (over	$35,000	prior to la of the interest areas.  Moreover, we will have trouble
lojbangirz.'s founding).				    raising funds through grants and contracts that would
							    greatly advance our	capabilities in	these areas.
  TL to	be revived? - The Institute has	been trying to	      Still, it	is worthwhile to have a	brief review of	each
improve	on its accomplishments.	 Several months	ago, it	    area.  Following is	a summary, from	Bob's perspective, of
announced that The Loglanist, its old journal somewhat	    each area:
comparable to Ju'i Lobypli, was	going to be revived under a
new name starting in December 1990.  This didn't happen.  A   The Language Development Process - Of course, we have
specific editor	was named in the first 1991 LogNet, but	we  reported on	specific achievements in the language
have no	further	word on	what is	planned.		    development	as they	have occurred.	In JL13, we surveyed
							    where the language development process stood with regard to
  Another Major	Revision to Institute Loglan? -	We have	    individual areas of	the design.  There is a	broader
mentioned previously (and lambasted) a proposal	to devise a picture, though, that might	be missed in looking too
series of 'declensions'	for each gismu in Institute Loglan. closely.
  Arguments in favor and opposing this revision	have	      Loglan has been the most public language development
appeared in each issue of Lognet for the past year, with    project in terms of	public knowledge of the	decisions being
Dr. Brown sounding alternatively supportive and	skeptical   made and input into	the decision-making itself.  Indeed, it
of the proposal; Bob McIvor, who proposed it, is the other  was	this public involvement	that led to the	big political
member of 'The Loglan Academy' that approves changes to	    squabbles of the last decade.  People who have been
Institute Loglan.  Dr. Brown has indicated that	a decision  involved in	the language development feel that the language
is expected this spring.				    is theirs.
  Interestingly, Dr. Brown claims that the Loglan	      A	side-effect of such a political	dispute	has been quite
engineering effort is complete,	even while contemplating    positive; we have pretty much isolated the politics	of the
such major changes as this one.				    "movement" from the	language development process itself.
							    The	community understands that it is listened to by	those
  Shareware? - The last	issue of TLI's Lognet surprised	Bob who	make day-to-day	design decisions.  This	has allowed the
with a minor note in response to a letter.  The	letter	    process to proceed by consensus; there have	been few non-
suggested that TLI software be distributed as 'Shareware',  unanimous decisions	during the development process.
and Dr.	Brown indicated	that the idea would be considered.    Ideas and	proposals are talked out thoroughly if
Bob's and Nora's intention to distribute LogFlash as Share- proposed.  A recent	discussion of relativistic tenses on
ware triggered the intellectual	property disputes that	    the	computer mailing list overflowed every reader's	mailbox
caused the current rift.  While	Shareware software can	    with dozens	of pages of discussion.	 The discussion
technically preserve copyrights, it causes those copyrights continues, and is far from a consensus; no change is being
to be of minimal financial value, since	Shareware is freely made.  Meanwhile, the several dozen	minor cmavo changes and
copyable.  Is The Institute about to make a landmark change grammar changes have so far	attracted minimal comment (and
in its policy?	We'll be watching.			    they can hardly be more abstruse than the interaction of
							    light-cones	at relativistic	speeds).  They are expected to
							    be adopted by consensus.
	      A	Survey of Lojban Applications		      The extent of the	Loglan development process has had a
							    second effect, also	a benefit.  There have been few
  Last issue, we gave a	rather thorough	progress report	on  splinter efforts.  Lojban itself is	one; the splinter has
the language development progress, and we provide updates   become the mainstream.  The	Institute version of the
on that	status each issue.  A couple of	people have pointed language is	ever-changing, and drawing small numbers in
out that we haven't provided comparable	information on	    spite of massive advertising and a completed book.	Jim
other aspects of the language -	how Loglan/Lojban will be   Carter's language project remains essentially a one-person
used.  On our registration forms, we ask you to	indicate    effort, and	Jim himself remains a Lojban supporter.
one or more of several reasons for your	interest in the	    Meanwhile la lojbangirz. grows at an ever-accelerating
language, and we have been remiss in not addressing those   rate.
areas directly in these	pages.				      An effect	of the dozens of person-years of work put into
  There	is a reason for	this, of course.  Nearly all of	the Loglan/Lojban is that it has become	a new standard in
productive work	being done is going towards the	language    artificial language	development.  Most previous artificial
development process.  That phase is wrapping up, and people languages have been	predominantly the result of one
are slowly starting to use the language.  As a result we    person's work.  But, now, no individual language inventor
can expect the other areas of interest to flower as more    can	hope to	put as much work into a	language design	as we
people learn the language.  Meanwhile, we try to focus on   all	have.  Barring some major new insight into the nature
the other areas	one at a time, to keep people thinking	    of language, any future language development project hoping
about them.						    to improve upon Lojban would likely	require	several	people

							   16


working	together, and most likely will build on	the work we ideas, the language, the contacts, and hopefully the
and others have	done rather than start anew.		    credibility, to convince some research grant source	to
  I believe that this is as it should be.  The Library of   commit a large sum of money	to pursue these	applications.
Congress has dozens of books about one-man languages that     Until then, we need to exchange ideas.  Patrick Juola
never went anywhere.  Language is by its nature	a commu-    wrote on Lojban and	machine	translation back in JL8, and
nicative process between people	with varying experience.    JL9	discussed the closely related area of Lojban as	a
One person cannot simultaneously test speakability and	    mathematics	and science interlingua.  Sheldon Linker has
understandability, and viable languages	must exhibit both   thought about the design of	a heuristic learning and con-
virtues	across the full	range of human discourse.	    versation program (something like the HAL 9000 computer of
  A final aspect of the	publicness of the language	    2001 - A Space Odyssey).  Art Wieners has been pursuing
development is the emphasis on keeping a record	of what	we  similar ideas, and has done	experimental work on the
have done.  An enormous	archive	is being built and	    software needed to recognize Lojban	words.	Of course, the
maintained on this development effort.	Whether	any	    YACC grammar for Lojban enhances this line of research, and
particular version of Loglan survives and prospers, those   John Cowan's parser, coupled with Jeff Taylor and Jeff
who come later will see	what we	have done and be able to    Prothero's earlier work, may provide the capability	to go
learn from it.	Among artificial languages, only Esperanto  from individual speech sounds (phonemes) to	fully analyzed
has any	significant historical record of the language	    text structure within a few	months.
before it blossomed into public	knowledge, and that record    One area we would	like to	pursue is the current research
is sparse compared to the Loglan/Lojban	record.		    being done in teaching computers 'common-sense'.  Some
  The other feature of the language development	process	    researchers	are not	too far	from getting computers to
worthy of comment is our reliance on keeping abreast of	the understand a large subset of English.  The simpler,	more
field of linguistics, gathering	as much	information is	    regular grammar of Lojban should make the computer
possible on what has been learned about	human language	    processing for language structure much lighter, allowing
before claiming	to have	invented a language that can serve  more effort	to go into 'understanding' of language.
as a human language.  This serves us well in 'selling	      Bob, as editor of	Ju'i Lobypli, would like to encourage
Lojban'	to both	language learners and linguistics	    more computer scientists to	write brief outlines of	their
researchers, making the	other goals of the language more    ideas for Lojban for the benefit of	JL readers.  These
achievable.						    seeds, planted today, may become grant proposals tomorrow.

  Machine Translation and Computer Applications	- The major   International Language - JL11 and	JL13 have contained
bases of computer scientists' interest in Lojban stem from  significant	discussion of the oft-made comparisons between
the potential computer applications of the language, of	    Loglan and Esperanto, and this issue hopefully brings those
which machine translation of natural language is the most   discussions	to a conclusion.  As the computer network
well-known.  A large portion of	the Lojban community,	    discussions	excerpted later	in this	issue demonstrate, the
perhaps	as much	as 50%,	are people working in the broad	    topic has not been limited to this journal.	 The topic has
area of	computer science, if not specifically in artificial been thoroughly addressed, but let's summarize the key
intelligence, computer language	design,	machine		    elements of	the situation.
translation, or	any of the several fields where	Lojban	      I	will first cover the question of Lojban	as an common
applications may develop.				    language in	certain	specialized domains, such as
  Work on these	applications is	still predominantly at the  mathematics, international law, etc.  The arguments	with
concept	stage, for two major reasons.  First is	that the    Esperantists in these pages	and elsewhere have not
language development is	not fully baselined, and computer   addressed these questions.	Each language brings its own
application developers avoid as	much as	possible trying	to  advantages to the problem. Esperanto brings	its culture,
hit a moving target.  When that	baseline occurs, and if	the demonstrated speaker base, and (surprisingly as an
language has achieved credibility as a human language, the  'advantage') its European structure	and vocabulary.	 When
second obstacle	can be challenged.  That obstacle is, of    well over 90% of the published material in the world is
course,	money.	Most useful computer applications will take written in a European language, and	most of	that in
several	person-years of	development, requiring work from    English, Loglan's non-European grammar is NOT an advantage.
people used to fairly high salaries.  Some might work on    Loglan's advantages	are that its grammar is	unambiguous,
small efforts as a hobby, but we cannot	expect these	    that machine translation was considered in making design
efforts	to bear	fruit, though they might serve as a seed    decisions, and that	it is likely to	be seen	less as	a
for some future	effort.					    "colonial" (=European) language to Third World populations.
  Getting the first financial support for Loglan	      It isn't clear what parameters could be used to decide
applications will be difficult;	Dr. Brown made one brief    what "international	language" is "best".  Esperanto	has a
attempt	in the late 1970's that	was ignored.  la	    large number of speakers, an established community,
lojbangirz. is taking a	more systematic	approach, building  culture, and literature, and considerable recognition
credibility and	being aware of other research where Lojban  outside its	own speaker base as "the" international
may prove a useful adjunct.  We	also have been building	    language.  On the other hand, many Esperantists admit that
awareness of our effort	in the computer	science	community.  the	language has flaws, and	that other languages invented
When Lojban development	is complete, we	will have the	    since have remedied	some of	these flaws (usually while

							   17


introducing new	ones that are equally severe); they contend into Esperanto or Lojban and it would still	convey
however, that the entire set of	flaws in the language are   misleading ideas - you cannot translate idiom literally
more than made up by the 100 years of language experience   without error.  You	may not	be able	to translate non-idiom
that has been acquired.					    literally, either -	imagine	the misunderstanding of	an
  I, Bob, agree	with this position.  Esperanto is presently translation	that results in	using the traditional meaning
in good	standing as the	prime candidate	among artificial    of "gay".
languages.  Under the best of circumstances for	us, Lojban
will not legitimately contest this standing for	at least a    Let us say that it is agreed that	there will be an
generation, because it will take at least that long for	    international language (not	as universally agreed as many
Lojban to build	a literature, culture, etc.  It	may not	    enthusiasts	might want to believe),	the language must be
happen even then.					    chosen.  Then the method(s)	of teaching the	language must
  It remains to	be proven whether any artificial language,  be developed, methods on a scale large enough to overcome
or any single language at all can serve	the needs of a	    differences	of education, and access to materials.	If only
"world language".  I doubt that	most people really know	    the	most educated members of a society are taught to speak
what such a language would entail.  Those who raise the	    an international language, the only	"achievement" is a
claim of English as such a language, for example, forget    class system with walls virtually impossible to surmount.
that English is	not a single language.	Only in	rigid,	    (Of	course,	motivating a farmer who	never runs into
formal,	written	text like scientific writing is	there	    foreigners to learn	an international language may be
enough standardization that various English dialects are    difficult.	But if she/he doesn't learn the	language,
mutually intelligible to the degree required by	an	    his/her children will be severely handicapped in joining
"international language".  I can note that, even there,	one the	internationally-connected 'upper-class'.)
can find lapses.  Last year, I read a technical	book on	      If a language is chosen, it should probably be an
lexicography, the science of dictionary-making,	written	by  artificial one, and	Esperanto is by	far the	leading
a Czech	linguist under the auspices of the United Nations,  candidate.	Indeed,	with the exception of Lojban (which has
and translated with his	help into English.  Portions were   major goals	independent of the international language
only barely intelligible.  Yet it was clear that the author question to	drive it), there are no	other meaningful
did have considerable command of idiomatic English, and	    candidates.	 The other artificial languages	of the world
Czech is a European language, presumably closer	to English  simply do not offer	anything to justify their selection.
than most non-European ones.  And this was written by a	      Why?  Because other candidates have little to offer
linguist who specializes in writing dictionaries of other   besides some aesthetic purity of design, and a purported
languages, and therefore highly	aware of the difficulties   claim that they are	'easier	to learn' than Esperanto.
in international communication.				      But questions of which artificial	language is most "easy
  I contend that colloquial or conversational communication to learn" are red herrings that settle nothing.  Indeed,
will be	much more difficult to unify under the auspices	of  close examination tends to reveal that artificial languages
an 'international language'.  This is because the problem   theoretically are no easier	to learn than natural languages
is NOT a lack of a common language, but	a lack of educa-    - I've heard no claim that the few children	who are	Es-
tion.  Education starts	with the ability to read and write  peranto 'native speakers' because they are raised in a
your own native	language fluently - who	could justify	    household where Esperanto is spoken, learn their language
asking someone to learn	to read	a second language when they any	faster than an English-native speaker learns English.
cannot read their own -	and how	would you teach	them.  But    For second-language learning, too	much depends on	student
a large	portion	of the world's population, probably a	    background,	motivation, and	method.	 There are as many
majority, is totally illiterate, and others are	only semi-  theories of	the "best" way to teach	a language as there are
literate.  How dare we as Loglanists expect to teach them   researchers; yet they give approximately similar results
predicate logic	or even	relativistic tenses!		    when tested	against	real students.	How could non-spe-
  It isn't necessary to	learn to read and write	in order to cialists be	better able to judge fine distinctions as to
learn a	language, but all international	language proposals  which language is easier to	teach, or to learn?
have been predominantly	targeted at the	educated speaker,     The methodology and the goal are more important than the
and teaching materials and methods generally require	    language.  Esperanto vocabulary may	be easier for an
ability	to read	and write as well as some understanding	    English speaker to learn, but if this merely leads to
about the formal rules of your native language.		    English-native Esperantists	that speak an encoded English
  I do not damn	the illiterate.	 The supposedly	literate    idiom, why bother?	They have not learned an international
societies are just as bad as targets for an international   language, because non-English speakers will	fail to	under-
language.  How much of the recent turmoil in the Middle	    stand the idiom.  (When Lojbanists speak encoded idiom, it
East has been due to the fact that Westerners, especially   stands out so starkly that "malglico" is one of the	first
Americans, do not understand Arabic culture, much less the  words a practicing Lojbanist learns.)
Arabic language?  The journalists seemed to consider it	a     A	quote from Andrew Large's The Artificial Language
major discovery	that "mother of	all battles", conveyed to   Movement may help set a perspective.  Large	cites a
us as a	grandiose pomposity by Saddam Hussein, was merely   President of the international Esperanto organization UEA,
the literal English translation	of a rather natural Arabic  as giving the following as an estimate of Esperanto's ease
way of saying "big battle".  Translate the phrase literally of learning:

							   18


							    who	also are fluent	in other languages in order to get
  "... Professor Lapenna offered a reasonable estimate of   these materials.  (Silvia Romanelli	reported working on
two or three hours per week for	a year in order	to acquire  translating	the draft textbook lessons into	Italian	a year
"a solid groundwork of knowledge of Esperanto's	grammatical ago, but we	do not know her	current	status.)
structure and of five hundred or so selected roots, from      Esperanto	is likely to be	the first non-English language
which the language's agglutinative structure enables one to that we have substantial Lojban teaching materials in,
derive some five thousand words."			    simply because it is the most commonly spoken non-English
							    language in	the community (and the largest audience	of
  This sounds far easier than learning a natural language   people immediately likely to be interested in learning an-
(about the equivalent of a 1 semester, 3 credit	class,	    other artificial language for any purpose).
spread over a full year), but the comparison with natural     The politics of choosing an international	language favor
language is only relevant if someone is	choosing between    Esperanto, or even English,	by far over Lojban.  There is
learning a second natural language and Esperanto.  The	    little to be done in this arena other than to survive and
choice is seldom that simple - except for mandatory school  grow as a language.	 This takes speakers and money,	and for
requirements, most people learn	a language because they	    the	near future we will have to concentrate	on English
intend to use it.  People who seriously	study a	second	    speakers, while trying to constantly reach out to natives
natural	language spend far more	than a couple hours a week  of other languages.	 The English-speaking market is	the
in study for a year (or	longer)	if they	want to	achieve	    hardest one	though;	English	predominance as	an
competence in that language; Lapenna's estimate	is only	a   international means	of communication means that there is
hobbyist level-of-effort.				    lower motivation among English speakers to learn other
  Serious students with	serious	goals in language	    languages -	and motivation and effort, as I	said above, are
competence study much more intensely, and achieve much	    everything.	 Even Esperanto	has made few inroads in	the
better results than Lapenna claims.  I learned the Lojban   English-speaking market (ELNA, the North American Esperanto
gismu list, 1300 words easily giving millions if not	    organization, has only around 1000 members,	only a few
billions of agglutinative compounds, in	3 months of a bit   times the effective	size of	la lojbangirz.)	 la lojbangirz.
more than an hour a day	- perhaps half of Lapenna's total   can	gain enormous credibility if we	can motivate Americans
time estimate at twice the intensity - yet I don't claim    and	other English-speakers to learn	a candidate
the Lojban vocabulary is as easy to learn for English	    international language.  We	have an	advantage, being
speakers as Esperanto's	cognates.  The advantage was due to centered in	the United States, and should use that
more intense effort, interest, and a teaching method	    advantage.
especially effective at	vocabulary instruction.	 (At such a   It won't be easy,	though.	 Most Americans	never learn to
higher level of	effort,	Esperanto students might learn a    speak a foreign language at	even a minimal level
few more roots due to the cognate recognition factor, but   (Europeans,	including the British are apparently much
not all	that many more.)				    better in this regard; Canadians are almost	certainly
  On the other hand, if	the claim is that Esperanto, or	any exposed to French to some considerable degree; I have no
artificial language, is	easier to learn	than a natural	    knowledge of foreign language education in other English-
language at a hobbyist level of	effort,	I would	never	    speaking countries).  If a Southern	Californian (I lived
contest	this.  But that	level of effort	gives insufficient  there 9 years), faced with almost a	majority of native
rewards	in terms of achievement	and understanding to	    Spanish-speaking neighbors,	can avoid learning Spanish
sustain	the motivation of the average person.		    fluently, much less	minimally, what	will make her/him learn
  I'll claim, by the way, that vocabulary learning is the   Lojban.  It	won't be ease of learning.  It must be
major factor in	achieving the kind of language skill	    motivation and education.  People must come	to believe that
Lapenna	is talking about, at least in an artificial	    understanding the ideas of those of	different cultures is
language.  Elsewhere in	the same discussion, Large notes    important.
that a few hours of study are all that it takes	to
understand the basics of Esperanto's grammar.  We can make    The international	language movement must be a movement of
the same claim about Lojban.  But grammar is not the	    education.	Lojban's contribution to that movement will
critical factor.  (In natural languages, it is idiom, and   therefore not be as	a competitor with Esperanto, but as a
other exceptions to the	standard grammar, that makes a	    tool of education, used in cooperation with	Esperantists,
language time consuming	to master.)			    and	all others who seek to improve the world's lot through
							    education.
  Returning specifically to Lojban, as an international
language candidate.  The essential first requirement is	      Intercultural Communications/Studies - This is often the
that Lojban be demonstrated as truly viable as a language,  goal of those supporting international languages:  a means
among several different	native-language	populations.  This  to understand other	cultures.  Ease	of learning is not the
will not be easy.  Lojban is not yet spoken by any non-na-  most important factor here,	cultural neutrality is far more
tive-English speaker, and the few in that category that	are important.
studying the language must obviously know English to learn    I've put a lot of	effort during the last year to ensure
Lojban,	since we have no materials beyond our brochure in   that Lojban	has incorporated the means to express the ideas
any foreign language.  We must develop fluent Lojbanists    of different cultures with equal ease.  Language typology,

							   19


the study of universals	that all languages have	in common,  minimize the effect	of interruption	or lesser time spent,
and the	differences that make each language unique, is a    but	the bottom line	is that	the method requires a
study that is finally gaining significant progress.  From   commitment to regular use -	it takes a certain number of
this work, we can see what linguistic features Lojban needs hours to learn a certain amount of vocabulary.  Someone who
to succeed as a	language, and what features it must emulate doesn't spend that time, regularly for 3 months, will have
in order to successfully model other languages.		    less success.  People who need a variety of	activities to
  In particular, I've concentrated on a	book, The World's   maintain their interest may	find LogFlash's	monotonous, if
Major Languages, edited	by B. Comrie.  This book surveys    effective, drills beyond their tolerance (unless they spend
several	dozen languages	in considerable	detail,	both	    additional time above and beyond LogFlash study in other
European and non-European.  After 6 months of steady	    Lojbanic activities).
plowing, I can report that Lojban has the capability of	      Lojban, however, offers an excellent laboratory for
conveying the essence of each of the idiosyncratic	    experimenting with new methods in language education, and
structures I found, though sometimes in	unusual	ways.  For  the	techniques we have developed as	amateurs have already
example, the 'topic construction' of Japanese turns out	to  proven effective for people	trying to learn	other
be nicely modelled by Lojban's prenex construction,	    languages.	Darren Stalder,	now studying Japanese, reports
designed for certain logical expressions.  The Chinese	    that studying Lojban gave him an awareness of the lin-
sentences used as examples can often be	conveyed in Lojban  guistic features of	how words sound	(phonology) that has
as very	elaborate tanru.  It is	clear to me that, if the    greatly enhanced his learning of Japanese.	He understands
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is true,	then Lojban's ability to    the	rules for pronouncing the language, but	also better
model the structures of	the world's languages will lead	to  understands	why the	rules hold, allowing him to better
a corresponding	ability	to understand the cultures that	use remember the rules when they apply as well as to extrapo-
those languages.  Time will surely tell.		    late when the rules	do not explicitly cover	the situation.
  Lojban's value in understanding other	cultures is	    Sylvia Rutiser has also been working with Japanese,	trying
enhanced by the	requirement to thoroughly think	about what  to use the LogFlash	flash card techniques to learn the
you wish to say	in culture-free	terms in order to express   Japanese writing system.
it in Lojban, with its drastically different structures.      I	personally think that language education may be	one of
The translations of a Suzanne Vega song	lyric into several  the	areas where Lojban first scores	a breakthrough that
artificial languages in	le lojbo se ciska, and my	    attracts attention from those not directly interested in
commentary, may	be more	revealing than a lot of	words here. the	language itself.  When the textbook is complete, I will
It took	me a couple of hours to	do the Lojban translation,  be seeking funding to pursue the study of Lojban as	a tech-
not because anything therein was hard to say in	Lojban,	but nique of language education.  In the meantime, I'll	be
it took	time to	figure out just	what the author	was trying  listening carefully	at the relevant	discussions at the
to say (and I'm	a native English speaker).		    Georgetown Round Table meetings on this subject in April.
  Expressing cultural ideas in Lojban for the benefit of
those in other cultures, will be slow and at times	      Linguistics Research - Much of the rest of this issue
cumbersome, especially for those not fluent in the	    addresses the subject of Lojban and	the linguistics
language.  But the problem is not trivial, and a little	    community, so I won't spend	much space here.  As that
deliberation may be a good sign	rather than a bad one.	    discussion will show, the concept of using Lojban to study
							    creolization processes (how	languages evolve in contact
  Language Education - Half of language	education for	    with other languages) is a new idea	that should have
natural	languages (or even more) is understanding the	    significant	credibility.  Unlike a comparable study	based
culture	of the target language,	since so much of the	    on a natural language, studying the	creolization of	Lojban
natural	idiom of a language is tied to various cultural	    gains the benefit of a clear statement as to what the
metaphors.  Thus everything mentioned in the last section   language is	before the start of such an evolutionary
provides a benefit for Lojban as a medium for learning	    process, thus allowing changes to be more easily observed
other languages.					    and	measured.
  I noted above	that linguists have determined no optimal     Most attention regarding Loglan linguistics research has
method for teaching languages.	A survey I've done of both  been with regard to	testing	the Sapir-Whorf	Hypothesis, the
traditional and	innovative teaching methods indicates that  original goal and primary ideal of some supporters of the
each method has	advantages and disadvantages; they will	    language.  JL6 and JL7 discussed this topic	considerably,
work for some students and not for others.		    and	there has been more discussion since then, including
  We have found	the same thing with LogFlash, our superb    some in the	computer network material in this issue.
vocabulary teaching method.  Both Nora and I have learned   However, a Sapir-Whorf test	may take decades to plan and
the Lojban vocabulary with what	we saw as incredible ease,  conduct, and may be	unconvincing to	some even if
and more important, with incredible staying power - we	    successful.
don't forget what we have learned.  But	the method requires   Thus far more important to Lojban's future in linguistics
the student to use the program for about 2-3 months at an   research, and its credibility among	linguists, is that
hour a day, with major interruptions causing a significant  Loglan/Lojban be proven useful for studying	other aspects
delay in mastery of the	language.  We're working on	    of language.  We are lucky in this.	 Dr. Brown, in
improvements with the next version of the program that will inventing the language, envisioned and designed it to serve

							   20


as a 'test bed'	for language experimentation, having a	      Lojban is	audio-visually isomorphic:  the	writing	system
minimum	of features that might detract from the	ability	for has	a grapheme for every phoneme and vice versa, and there
later linguists	to use Loglan as a tool	to learn.  We	    are	no supra-segmental phonemes (such as tones or pitch)
believe	that the Lojban	designers have stuck to	this	    which are not represented in the writing system.  Lojban's
principle, and even enhanced it, in the	last few years.	    phonology contains significant pauses that affect word
What remains is	to convince the	linguists that we are	    boundaries,	and allows pauses between any two words.  The
correct.						    optional written representation for	pause is a period,
  Let us turn now to the first step in making the	    although pauses can	be unambiguously identified in written
linguistic case	for Lojban, the	response to Arnold Zwicky's text from the morphological	rules alone.  Lojban also uses
1969 critique of Loglan.  We will then follow with other    stress significantly, and again there is a written
aspects	of Lojban's application, especially as discussed on representation (capitalization of the affected vowel or
the computer networks.					    syllable), which is	omitted	in most	text, where the
							    morphological default of penultimate stress	applies.
							      Lojban is	morphologically	unambiguous in two senses:  a
    Response to	Arnold Zwicky's	1969 Review of Loglan 1	    string of phonemes (including explicit pause and stress
Loglan and Lojban: A Linguist's	Questions And An Amateur's  information) can be	broken up into words in	only one way,
			  Answers			    and	each compound word can be converted to and from	an
	   by John Cowan  (ci'a	la djan. kau,n.)	    equivalent phrase in only one way.
	 Internet address: [email protected]	      The syntactic unambiguity	of Lojban has been established
							    by the use of a LALR(1) parser generator which, in
  The following	questions about	Loglan are based on a 1969  cooperation	with a series of simple	pre-parser operations,
review by Arnold M. Zwicky of James Cooke Brown's 1966	    produces a unique parse for	every Lojban text.  In
edition	of Loglan 1.  Although basically friendly, Zwicky's addition, the existence of a defined 'phrase structure
review raises a	large number of	linguistic objections to    rule' grammar underlying the language (and tested via the
Loglan as it existed in	1966.  The review represents the    parser generator) guarantees that there are	no sentences
only formal notice the linguistics community has ever taken where distinct deep	structures generate isomorphic surface
of the Loglan Project.	Unfortunately, the Project has	    structures.	 On the	other hand, Lojban does	have
never made any reply.					    transformations, although they are not explicit in the
  The answers that appear here reflect the perspective of   machine grammar:  there are	distinct surface structures
Lojban (not Institute Loglan) as it exists in 1991.	    which have the same	semantics, and therefore reflect the
Therefore, no attempts have been made to sort out Zwicky's  same underlying deep structure.
misunderstandings of Brown's text, Brown's		      The claim	for semantic unambiguity is a limited one only.
misunderstandings (or mistakes in writing) about his own    Lojban contains several constructs which are explicitly
language, valid	points as of 1969 that were later changed   ambiguous semantically.  The most important	of these are
by Brown, and valid points as of 1969 that were	changed	    Lojban tanru (so-called 'metaphors') and Lojban names.
when (or since)	Lojban split from Institute Loglan.	    Names are ambiguous	in almost any language,	and Lojban is
  Throughout, "Loglan" refers to 1966 Loglan as	seen by	    no better; a name simply must be resolved in context, and
Zwicky,	and "Lojban" to	1991 Lojban as seen by me.  The	    the	only final authority for the meaning of	a name is the
word "Lojban" is derived from the same metaphor	as "Loglan" user of the	name.  tanru are further discussed in later
("logical language") but using Lojban words ("logji	    replies.
bangu").
  As the title indicates, I am only an amateur (lit.	    2.	If the meaning of a particular tanru cannot be
"lover") of linguistics, and I may misinterpret	some of	    completely understood from understanding the component
Zwicky's points.  The question-and-answer format used here  parts, a separate dictionary entry is needed for every
is purely for expository convenience.  Zwicky is not	    possible tanru, making the Lojban dictionary infinitely
responsible for	the form of the	questions, which reflect    long.  How can this	be avoided?
only my	interpretations	of his points, except for quoted
text within the	questions followed by (Z), which are	      tanru are	binary combinations of predicates, such	that
quotations from	Zwicky's original review.  That	review was  the	second predicate is the	'head' and the first predicate
published in Language 45:2 (1969), pp. 444-457.		    is a modifier for that head.  The meaning of the tanru is
							    the	meaning	of its head, with the additional information
1.  Lojban sentences do	not have unique	interpretations;    that there is some unspecified relationship	between	the
how can	Lojban be said to be unambiguous?		    head and the modifier.
							      tanru are	the basis of compound words in Lojban.
  The sense in which Lojban is said to be unambiguous is    However, a compound	word has a single defined meaning
not a simple one, and some amplification of the	fundamental whereas the	meaning	of a tanru is explicitly ambiguous.
claim is necessary.  Ambiguity is judged on four levels:    Lojban tanru are not as free as English figures of speech;
the phonological-graphical, the	morphological, the	    they are 'analytic', meaning that the components of	the
syntactic, and the semantic.				    tanru do not themselves assume a figurative	sense.	Only
							    the	connection between them	is unstated.

							   21


  Most of the constructs of Lojban are semantically	    originally select some words as 'semantic primitives';
unambiguous, and there are semantically	unambiguous ways    however, he	later added words with no claim	that the addi-
(such as with relative clauses)	to paraphrase the meaning   tions were 'primitive' in the same sense).
of any tanru.  For example, "slasi mlatu" ("plastic-cat")
might be paraphrased in	ways that translate to "cat that is 4.	Some tanru seem	poorly designed	and not	in keeping with
made from plastic" or "cat which eats plastic" or various   expressed standards.  Also,	tanru like "nixli ckule",
other interpretations, just as in English.  However, the    analogous to English "girls' school", are so open-ended in
single (compound) word derived from this tanru,		    sense that there is	no way to block	such far-fetched
"slasymlatu", has exactly one meaning from among the	    interpretations as "a school intended to train girls
interpretations, which could be	looked up in a dictionary   between the	ages of	6 and 10 to play the bassoon", which is
(if someone had	found the word useful enough to	formally    patently absurd.  What is the proper interpretation	of
submit it).  There is no law compelling	the creation of	    tanru?
such a word, however, and there	is even	an 'escape
mechanism' allowing a speaker to indicate that a particular   In the early part	of the Loglan Project, poor tanru were
instance of a 'nonce' compound word is 'nonstandard' (has   regrettably	common.	 In particular,	it was common for tanru
not been checked against a dictionary or other standard),   to be calques on English expressions, such as "beautiful
and may	have a meaning based on	an unusual interpretation   type of small" for English "pretty small".	Many tanru
of the underlying tanru.				    employed the primitive for "make"' (in the sense "make from
							    materials")	where "cause" would have been more appropriate
3.  The	Loglan 'primitive words' seem to have been chosen   (e.g. "kill" = "dead-make").  Many years worth of effort
at random, without regard to any sort of semantic theory.   since then have gone into removing such malglico
Why was	this done?					    ('derogatively English') tanru from	Lojban texts.
							      The Lojban tanru "nixli ckule" ("girl type of school")
  Lojban content words are built up from a list	of about    cannot mean, out of	context, "school intended to train
1300 root words	(called	"gismu"), which	are not	necessarily girls between 6 and	10 years of age	to play	the bassoon",
to be taken as semantically simple.  Lojban does not claim  although if	such a school existed it could certainly be
to exhibit a complete and comprehensive	semantic theory	    called a nixli ckule.  This	interpretation can be rejected
which hierarchically partitions	the entire semantic space   as implausible because it involves additional restrictive
of human discourse.					    information.  The undefined	relationship between "nixli"
  Rather, the 1300-odd root words blanket semantic space,   and	"ckule"	cannot drag in additional information 'by the
in the sense that everything human beings talk about can be hair', as it were.	Instead, this intricate	interpretation
built up using appropriate tanru.  This	claim is being	    would require a larger tanru incorporating nixli ckule as
tested in actual usage,	and root words can still be added   one	of its components, or else a non-tanru construct,
if necessary (after careful consideration) if genuine gaps  probably involving a Lojban	relative clause.  As a
are found.  For	the most part, the few gaps which are now   comparison,	such interpretations as	"school	containing
recognized (about 20 words will	be added soon) reflect the  girls", "school whose students are girls", and "school to
completing of semantic sets.  It is no longer permitted	for train persons to behave like girls"	are plausible with
language users to create new gismu root	words (in the	    minimal context because these renderings do	not involve ad-
standard form of the language, at least); newly	coined	    ditional restriction.
words must fall	recognizably outside the highly	regulated
gismu morphological space (a specific and separate	    5.	Lojban claims to be unambiguous, but many constructs
morphological structure	is reserved for	coined words -	    have vague meanings, and the meanings of the primitives
usually	borrowings - and a marker is available to indicate  themselves are extremely poorly specified.	On the other
that a word is a 'nonce' coinage rather	than an	established hand, Lojban forces	precision on speakers where it is not
'dictionary word').					    wanted and where natural-language speakers can easily avoid
  Lojban's empirically derived word list is similar to that it.	 Is this appropriate to	a culturally neutral,
of Basic English, which	replaces the whole English	    unambiguous	language?
vocabulary with	English-normal compounds built from about
800 root words.	 Lojban	and Basic English both allow for      Lojban's avoidance of ambiguity does not mean an
the adoption of	technical terms	from other languages to	    avoidance of vagueness.  A Lojban aphorism states that the
cover things like plant	and animal names, food names, and   price of infinite precision	is infinite verbosity, as
names of chemical compounds.				    indeed Wilkins' Philosophical Language illustrates.
  The unfortunate terms	"primitive word" and "prim"	    Lojban's allowable vagueness permits useful	sentences to be
formerly used by the Loglan Project suggested the notion    not	much longer than their natural-language	counterparts.
that Lojban's set of gismu was meant to	be a list of	      There are	many ways to omit information in Lojban, and it
semantic primitives.  This is not the case for Lojban, and  is up to the listener to reconstruct what was meant, just
the more neutral term "root word" was adopted recently to   as in natural languages.  In each construct, there are
reduce confusion.  Lojban predicate words, therefore, are   specific required and optional components.	Unlike English,
now divided into gismu 'root words', lujvo 'compound words' omitting an	optional component explicitly and unambiguously
and le'avla 'borrowings' (lit.	'taken words').	 (Brown	did flags an ellipsis.	Furthermore, the listener has a	clear

							   22


way of querying	any of this elliptically omitted
information.						    7.	Loglan anaphora	use a convention which is "quite
  There	are also some categories which are necessary in	    precise, and also quite unlike anything in natural
Lojban and not in other	languages.  For	example, Lojban	    languages" (Z), involving counting backward	from the
requires the speaker, whenever referring to objects, to	    reference to the referent.	This provides unique reference,
specify	whether	the objects are	considered as individuals,  but	is also	difficult to understand	and use.  Is there
as a mass, or as a (set	theoretic) set.	 Likewise, logical  nothing better that	preserves the desirable	property of
relations are made explicit: there can be no neutrality	in  unique reference which a logical language needs?
Lojban about inclusive vs. exclusive 'or', which are no
more closely related semantically than any other pair of      The Lojban anaphora conventions have undergone much
logical	connectives.					    revision and expansion since the early days	of Loglan.
  These	properties are a product of Lojban's fundamental    There now exist both the "traditional" Loglan back-counting
design,	which was chosen to emphasize a	highly distinctive  anaphora, which refer to previous referents, and more
and non-natural	syntax (that of	formal first-order	    "natural-language-like" anaphoric words which are
predicate logic) embedded in a language	with the same	    meaningless	until assigned.	 Assignment may	be either in
expressive power as natural languages.	Through	the	    after-thought or forethought.  These words are somewhat
appearance of this one highly unusual feature, the intent   like natural language pronouns, but	may more closely be
of the Loglan Project has been to maximize one difference   compared to	the use	of regions of space in American	Sign
between	Lojban and natural languages without compromising   Language to	refer to remote	persons	and things.  Unassigned
speakability and learnability.	This difference	could then  space regions in ASL are similarly meaningless.
be tested by considering whether the use of first-order	      It is no longer a	required convention that anaphora
predicate logic	as a syntactic base aided fluent Lojban	    variables be assigned in a fixed order.  Subscripts	(as in
speakers in the	use of this logic as a reasoning tool.	    mathematics) are allowed almost everywhere in the language,
  As to	the 'primitives', Lojban gismu roots are defined    and	provide	for a countable	infinity of variables as of
rather abstractly, in order to cover as	large a	segment	of  many other things.	Lojban also has	added the capability of
closely	related	semantic space as possible.  These broad    using individual letters and acronyms as anaphoric symbols.
(but not really	vague) concepts	can then be restricted
using tanru and	other constructs to any	arbitrary degree    8.	Why does Loglan	have a different and even more complex
necessary for clarity.	Communicating the meaning of a	    system of "personal	pronouns" for speaker/listener
gismu (or any other Lojban word) is a problem of teaching   reference?	Is this	level of complexity really in order for
and lexicography.  The concepts	are defined as predicate    what other languages treat as a simple matter?
relationships among various arguments, and various
experimental approaches	have been explored throughout the     Lojban personal pronouns have been simplified.  There are
Loglan Project to determine the	best means to convey these  now	forms for I, II, III, I	and II,	I and III, II and III,
meanings.  It is believed that the current working	    and	I and II and III.  There are no	separate forms (and
definitions of the gismu are much more clear than the 1966  never have been) for plurals, because number is not	a
set.							    mandatory grammatical category in any part of Lojban.
							    Number is expressed, when needed, using explicit numerals
6.  On a more technical	note, Lojban tanru involving more   (which include both	precise	and vague forms	analogous to
than two components are	always left-grouping (in the	    English 'some', 'few', 'too	many', etc.)  Honorifics were
absence	of a marker word).  Right-branching structure is    recently added to the language, using a general mechanism
"much more natural to human languages" (Z).  Why was this   which may apply to any word	or construct, not merely to
choice made?						    pronouns.

  Lojban is predominantly a left-branching language.  By    9.	Why does Loglan	treat predicate	connection as primary
default, all structures	are left-branching, with right-	    and	sentence, argument, etc. connection as secondary?
branching available when marked	by a particle.	Since the
head of	most constructs	appears	on the left, left-branching   Whatever may have	been assumed in	the past for
structures tend	to favor the speaker.  Nothing spoken needs pedagogical	purposes, logical connection between sentences
to be revised to add more information.	When the head is on is basic to	Lojban.	 All other forms of logical connection
the right, as in the case of tanru, left-branching may seem may	be transformed into equivalent sentence	connections.
counter-intuitive, as it requires the listener to retain
the entire structure in	mind until the head is found.	    10.	 Why are there so many structure words,	and why	are
However, left-branching	was retained even in tanru for the  many of them so similar?  Wouldn't this make Loglan	hard to
sake of	simplicity.					    understand at a cocktail party (or a similar noisy
  Experience has shown,	however, that Lojban's left-	    environment)?
branching structure is not a major problem for language
learners.  Indeed, many	longer English metaphors translate    One of the recurrent difficulties	with all forms of
directly into Lojban using simple left-branching	    Loglan, including Lojban, is the tendency to fill up the
structures.						    available space of structure words,	making words of	similar

							   23


function hard to distinguish in	noisy environments.  The
phonological revisions made when Lojban	split from Insti-     The English sentence "If you water it, it	will grow"
tute Loglan allowed for	many more structure words (cmavo),  looks superficially	like a Lojban "na.a" connection
but once again the list	has almost entirely filled.	    (material implication), but	it actually has	causal
  In some cases, notably the digits 0-9, an effort has been connotations not present in	"na.a".	 Therefore, a proper
made to	separate them phonologically.  The vocatives	    translation	must involve the notion	of cause.  Neither the
(including the words used for communication protocol, e.g.  Lojban coordinating	causal conjunction nor the two cor-
over the radio)	are also maximally separated		    relative subordinating causal conjunctions (one of which
phonologically.	 Many other function words are based on	    subordinates the cause and the other the effect) will
shortened forms	of corresponding gismu roots, however, and  serve, since these require that either the cause, or the
are not	maximally separated.				    effect, or both be asserted.  Instead, the correct
  A variety of ways to say "Huh?" have been added to the    translation	of the English involves	"cause"	as a predicate,
language, partially alleviating	the difficulty.	 These	    and	might be paraphrased "The event	of your	watering it is
question words can be used to specify the type of word that a cause of the event of its	future growing."
was expected, or the part of the relationship that was not
understood by the listener.				    14.	 How can Loglan	logical	connectives be used in
							    imperative sentences? Logical connectives work properly
11.  Loglan's "restrictions on stresses	and pauses results  only on complete sentences,	and of those, only those which
in long	sequences of unstressed	syllables which	must be	    actually assert something.
pronounced without a break" (Z).  This makes correct speech
a "trial for a speaker of English or Russian, and not easy    In early versions	of Loglan, imperatives were marked by a
even for a speaker of French" (Z).  Natural languages often predication	without	a subject.  In Lojban, there is	a
have non-significant pauses, but in Loglan every non-	    special imperative pronoun "ko".  This is a	second person
required pause is forbidden.  Is Loglan	really speakable?   pronoun logically equivalent to "do", the normal Lojban
							    word for 'you', but	conveying an imperative	sense.	Thus,
  Lojban allows	certain	flexibilities of pause and stress   an imperative can be understood as commanding the listener
in the area of structure words.	 By default, all structure  to make the	assertion true which results when "ko" is
words are unstressed.  However,	it is possible to set off   replaced by	"do".
structure words	with optional pauses, and even to give them   For example, "ko sisti" ('Stop!')	is logically equivalent
optional stress, subject to a single limitation:  a	    to "do sisti" ('you	stop'),	and pragmatically may be
structure word followed	by a predicate word without pause   understood as 'Make	"do sisti" true!".  This allows	logical
must not be stressed.					    connection to be used in imperatives without loss of
  Pauses are now permitted between any two words; only	    clarity or generality; the logical connection applies to
within a word is pause forbidden, and most words are short. the	assertion which	is in effect embedded in the im-
gismu and cmavo	are always one or two syllables	long, and   perative.
many lujvo compounds are only two or three syllables.	      A	minor advantage	of this	style of imperative is that
							    tensed imperatives like "ko	ba klama", ('Come in-the-
12.  "A	partial	explanation for	the existence of	    future!') become straightforward.
transformations	is to be found in the necessity	for
providing speakers of any language with	relatively	    15.	 Loglan's existential (bound) variables	appear to be
acceptable variants of certain types of	deep structures."   non-standard.  Brown states	that the value of an
(Z)  Loglan has	no transformations, making some	sentences   existential	variable is always unknown to the speaker,
expressible, but far from  straightforward or easy to use.  rather than	merely being unspecified (perhaps for reasons
Doesn't	this make Loglan harder	to use than typical natural of privacy or germaneness).	 Why is	this?  Also, why isn't
languages?						    quantification over	predicates provided?  Why are the back-
							    counting anaphora unable to	refer to existential variables?
  Lojban does have transformations, in the sense that there
are several alternative	surface	structures that	have the      Existential variables are	now interpreted	in a standard
same semantics and therefore, presumably, the same deep	    way, to refer to something unspecified, or something
structure.  What it does not have is identical surface	    specified by a restrictive relative	clause ("all x such
structures with	differing deep structures, so a	surface-    that...").	There are separate sets	of variables for
structure-only grammar is sufficient to	develop	an adequate quantifying	over arguments and over	predicates.  In
parsing	for every text.	 Knowledge of transformations is    general, the back-counting anaphora	(which are less
required only to get the semantics right.		    important in Lojban	than in	Loglan)	are not	used to	refer
							    to other anaphoric words; this makes the counting
13.  Lojban connectives	cannot be used to correctly	    convention a bit more complex, but leads to	more generally
translate English "If you water	it, it will grow", because  useful results.
material implication is	too weak and the special causal
connectives, which connect assertions, are too strong.	    16.	 Untensed sentences ought to be	neutral	with respect to
What can be done instead?				    tense, mood, and aspect, but Brown treats untensed

							   24


sentences as expressing	disposition, habit, or ability -    17.	 The decisions about the degrees of predicates (the
lasting	throughout all time.  This is inconsistent with	    number of arguments	expected for each) seem	arbitrary.
other parts of the language which treat	ellipsized material Color words	are treated as relations of degree 2; weather
as merely unspecified.					    predicates which have no real subject nevertheless need at
							    least one argument;	event predicates like "kiss" don't have
  The Lojban tense system has been greatly elaborated and   an argument	specifying the time.  What theory underlies the
clarified with respect to its Loglan predecessor.  There    choice of place structures?
are now	specific mechanisms for	stating	the potentiality or
actuality of a predication; in the absence of these, a	      Very little.  Place structures are empirically derived,
predication is neutral concerning the degree of	actuality   like the root word list itself, and	present	a far more
expressed by it.  It is	no longer true that "untensed"	    difficult problem; therefore, they will be standardized (if
predicates are used to express disposition or habit.  They  ever) only after everything	else is	complete.  Many	of the
may be so used,	by ellipsis, but are in	fact neutral in	the particular objections made above have force, and have
absence	of further evidence.				    already been accepted.  There is no	sufficiently complete
  Lojban tense,	like other incidental modifiers	of a	    and	general	case theory that allows	the construction of a
predication, tend to be	contextually "sticky".	When once   priori place structures for	the large variety of predicates
specified in connected discourse, to whatever degree of	    that exist in the real world.
precision seems	appropriate, tense need	not be respecified    The current place	structures of Lojban represent a three-
in each	sentence.  In narration, this assumption is modi-   way	compromise: fewer places are easier to learn; more
fied to	the extent that	each sentence is assumed to refer   places make	for more concision (arguments not represented
to a slightly later time than the previous sentence,	    in the place structure may be added, but must be marked
although with explicit tense markers it	is possible to tell with appropriate case tags); the presence of an argument in
a story	in reversed or scrambled time order.  Therefore,    the	place structure	makes a	metaphysical claim that	it is
each predication does have a tense, one	that is	implicit if required for the predication to be meaningful.  This last
not necessarily	explicit.				    point requires some	explanation.  For example, the
							    predicate "klama" ("come, go") has five places: the	actor,
							    the	destination, the origin, the route, and	the means.
							    Lojban therefore claims that anything not involving	these
							    five notions (whether specified in a particular sentence or
							    not) is not	an instance of "klama".	 The predicate "cliva"
							    ("leave") has the same places except for the destination;
							    it is not necessary	to be going anywhere in	particular for
							    "cliva" to hold.  "litru" ("travel") has neither origin nor
							    destination, merely, the actor, the	route, and the means.
							    The	predicate "cadzu" ("walk"), involves only a walker and
							    a means of walking (typically legs).  One may walk without
							    an origin or a destination (in circles, e.g.).  For
							    describing the act of walking from somewhere to somewhere,
							    the	tanru "cadzu klama" or the corresponding lujvo "dzukla"
							    would be appropriate.  The tanru "cadzu cliva" and "cadzu
							    litru" may be similarly analyzed.

							    18.	 The Loglan phonological system	is hard	for English-
							    speakers (to say nothing of	Japanese-speakers) to use, due
							    to the large numbers of consonant clusters and non-English
							    diphthongs.	 How can a language be appropriate as an
							    international auxiliary language when it is	difficult to
							    pronounce?

							      Lojban phonology is much better than 1966	Loglan's was.
							    There are now only 4 falling and 10	rising diphthongs, and
							    the	rising diphthongs are used only	in names and in
							    paralinguistic grunts representing emotions.  All 25 vowel
							    combinations are used, but they are	separated by a
							    voiceless vocalic glide written with an apostrophe,	thus
							    preventing diphthongization.  English-speakers think of
							    this glide as /h/, and even	speakers of languages like
							    French, which has no /h/, can manage this sound
							    intervocalically.

							   25


  Consonant clusters are controlled more carefully as well.   In any event, the	word-making algorithm used for Lojban
Only 48	selected clusters are permitted	initially; some	of  has	the clear benefit of ensuring that phonemes occur in
these, such as "ml" and	"mr", do not appear in English,	but the	language in rough proportion to	their occurrence in the
are still possible to English-speakers with a bit of prac-  source natural languages, and in patterns and orders that
tice.  Medial consonant	clusters are also restricted, to    are	similar	to those in the	source languages (thus the
prevent	mixed voiced-unvoiced clusters,	consecutive stops,  first syllable of Lojban gismu most	frequently ends	in /n/,
and other hard-to-handle combinations.	The new	Lojban	    reflecting the high	frequency of syllable ending /n/ in
sound /y/, IPA [@], is used to separate	"bad" medial	    Chinese).  The result is a language	that is	much more
clusters wherever the morphology rules would otherwise	    pleasant-sounding than, for	example, randomly chosen
produce	them.						    phoneme strings, while having at least some	arguable claim
  Difficulties with the	variety	of permitted initial sounds to being free of the European cultural bias	found in the
are overestimated.  Lojban's morphology	makes pronouncing   roots of most other	constructed languages.
these words easier than	they first appear.  Initial
consonant clusters occur only in content words (predicates) 20.	 Loglan	has an absolutely fixed	word order; in some
and names.  These words	seldom are spoken in isolation;	    cases, changes of word order are possible, but only	by the
rather,	they are expressed in a	speech stream with a	    addition of	marker particles.  Why is this?	 No natural
rhythmic stress	pattern	preceded (and followed)	by words    language has an absolutely fixed word order	(or for	that
that end with a	vowel.	The unambiguous	morphology allows   matter, an absolutely free one).
the words to be	broken apart even if run together at a very
high speech rate.  Meanwhile, though, the final	vowel of      Lojban's word order is by	no means fixed.	 In fact,
the preceding word serves to buffer the	cluster, allowing   Lojban is only secondarily a "word order" language at all.
it to be pronounced as a much easier medial cluster.  Thus  Primarily, it is a particle	language.  Using a standard
"le mlatu" ("the cat"),	while officially pronounced	    word order allows many of the particles to be 'elided'
/le,MLA,tu/, can be pronounced as /lem,LA,tu/ with no	    (dropped) in common	cases.	However, even the standard un-
confusion to the listener.				    marked word	order is by no means fixed; the	principal
  In addition, the buffering sound, IPA	[I] (the "i" of	    requirement	is that	at least one argument precede the
"English "bit")	is explicitly reserved for insertion at	any predicate, but it is perfectly all right for all of	the
point into a Lojban word where the speaker requires it for  arguments to do so,	leading	to an SOV word order rather
ease of	pronunciation.	The word "mlatu" may be	pronounced  than the canonical SVO (subject-verb-object).  VSO order is
/mIlatu/ by those who cannot manage "ml", and nothing else  expressible	using only 1 particle.	In two-argument
need be	changed.  This sound is	"stripped" by the listener  predicates,	OSV, OVS, and VOS are also possible with only
before any further linguistic processing is done.	    one	particle, and various even more	scrambled orders (when
							    more than two-place	predicates are involved) can also be
19.  Loglan words resemble their English cognates, but	    achieved.
unsystematically so.  Does this	really aid learning, or
does it	make learning more difficult?			    21.	 Loglan	does not have WH-questions of the English kind
							    (its questions are fill-in-the-blank) and does not have
  Lojban words are less	English-like than prior	versions of relative clauses.  Therefore, no "unbounded"
Loglan,	since they were	redone using new (1985)	data on	    transformations (in	the technical sense) exist in the
numbers	of speakers.  English is now less important in	    language.  Sentences like "I met a man that	John said Mary
relative terms than Mandarin Chinese, and most Lojban words told George	to visit" can be translated only with great
are fairly equal mixtures of the two languages,	with lesser pain.  How can such	fairly common types of constructions be
influences from	Spanish, Hindi,	Russian, and Arabic.  The   represented	better?
other languages	used in	1966 Loglan are	no longer as
prominent in terms of world-wide number	of speakers, and      Lojban does have relative	clauses, of the	Hebrew type;
were dropped from the word-making algorithm.		    the	relative marker	and the	relative pronoun are distinct.
  There	is no proven claim that	the Lojban word-making	    The	marker "poi" (or "noi" for non-restrictive clauses)
algorithm has any meaningful correlation with learnability  always comes at the	beginning, but the embedded clause is
of the words.  Brown has reported that informal		    in normal order, using the relative	pronoun	"ke'a" at the
'engineering tests' were conducted early in the	Loglan	    appropriate	location to represent whatever is being
Project, leading to his	selection of the current algorithm, elaborated by the clause.
but these tests	have never been	documented or subjected	to
review.	 The Logical Language Group has	proposed formal	    22.	 If Loglan is to be used as an international auxiliary
tests of the algorithm,	and is instrumenting its software   language, it must be culturally neutral.  But many of its
used for teaching vocabulary to	allow data to be gathered   conceptual distinctions, for example the color set,	are
that will confirm or refute Brown's hypothesis.	 Gathering  clearly biased towards particular languages.  There	is a
this data may incidentally provide additional insights into word for 'brown', which is a color not used	in Chinese
the vocabulary learning	process, enabling Lojban to serve   (although a	word exists, it	is rare); on the other hand,
the additional purpose of being	a test bed for research	in  there is only one word for 'blue', although	Russian-
2nd language acquisition.				    speakers convey the	range of English 'blue'	with two words.

							   26


How can	Loglan be prevented from splintering into dialects
which differ in	such points?				      Perhaps not.  However, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis	tends
							    to be confirmed if experiments show	that Lojban-speakers
  To some extent, such splitting is inevitable and already  have a greater facility with predicate logic than non-
exists in natural languages.  Some English-speakers may	use Lojban-speakers.  That would indicate that language
the color term 'aqua' in their idiolect, whereas others	    (natural language) limits thought in ways that Lojban-
lump that color	with 'blue', and still others with 'green'. speakers can bypass.  This form of test is not free	of its
Understanding is still possible, perhaps with some effort.  own	difficulties, which have been discussed	elsewhere.
The Lojban community will have to work out such	problems
for itself; there are sufficient clarifying mechanisms to			      Summary
resolve	differences in idiolect	or style between
individuals.  The unambiguous syntax and other constraints    Professor	Zwicky's analysis raises several points	of
defined	in the language	prescription should make such dif-  concern to linguists who might be interested in the
ferences much more easily resolvable than, say,	the	    potential use of Lojban for	linguistic research.  It is
differences between two	dialects of English.		    believed that sufficient planning and linguistic
  The prescriptive phase of Lojban is not intended to solve understanding (and occasionally serendipity) has been
all problems (especially all semantic problems)	but merely  incorporated in the	Lojban language	design process to meet
to provide enough structure to get a linguistic	community   these concerns.  Other concerns no doubt exist; it is
started.  After	that, the language will	be allowed to	    believed they can similarly	be addressed, and that Lojban
evolve naturally, and will probably creolize a bit in some  will prove linguistically viable, as well as useful	in our
cultures.  (A recent discussion	has pointed out	that	    attempts to	understand language.
observing the creolization of such a highly prescribed	      Meanwhile, as Lojban has evolved since the 1966 version
constructed language will undoubtedly reveal much about	the of Loglan, new features, not analyzed by Zwicky, have been
nature of the processes	involved.			    added to the language, further enhancing its potential
							    value.  These features, such as Lojban's expression	of the
23.  Loglan is supposed	to be intended as a test of the	    several varieties of natural language negation, the	system
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its negative form:  "structural   of attitudinal words for emotional expression, and the
features of language make a difference in our awareness	of  discursives	used for metalinguistic	manipulation and
the relations between ideas" (Brown).  Is this simply	    comment on the discourse in	progress, raise	new questions
another	way of saying "Distinctions are	more likely to be   about the adequacy of Lojban's design, while providing new
noticed	if structurally	marked"	(Z)?  If so, this is	    opportunities for exploration of the properties of natural
trivially true.						    language, as well as the correctness of the	Sapir-Whorf
							    hypothesis.
  A better paraphrase might be "Unmarked features are more    In 1991, it is time for linguists	to again look at
likely to be used, and therefore will tend to constitute    Lojban, with the expectation that new questions, and new
the backgrounded features of the language".  By	making the  respect, will be forthcoming.
unmarked features those	which are most unlike natural-lan-
guage features,	a new set of thought habits will be created
(if Sapir-Whorf	is true) which will be measurably different	 A First Cut at	a Linguistic Description of Lojban
from those possessed by	non-Lojban speakers.  If Sapir-
Whorf is false,	which is the null hypothesis for Lojban	    Following are some notes on	Loglan/Lojban of possible
purposes, no such distinctions in thought habits will be    interest to	linguists.  It is intended that	this discussion
detectable.						    is more germane to this audience than our general brochure.
  Further elaboration of Loglan	Project	thinking about	    We welcome questions, comments (and	yes, criticisms) from
Sapir-Whorf has	led to another alternate formulation:  "The the	linguistic community on	all aspects of the project.
constraints imposed by structural features of language
impose corresponding constraints on thought patterns."	In    Lojban is	a public domain	version	of Loglan, a
attempting to achieve cultural neutrality, Lojban has been  constructed	language first invented	by Dr. James Cooke
designed to minimize many structural constraints found in   Brown in 1955.  Dr.	Brown is still working on his version
natural	languages (such	as word	order, and the structural   of the language, which has significant flaws and remains
distinctions between noun, verb, and adjective).  If Sapir- proprietary.  There	is a dispute between Dr. Brown's group
Whorf is true, there should be measurable broadening in	    and	ours, which has	been compared to the VolapЃk collapse
thought	patterns (possibly showing up as increased cre-	    and	the Esperanto/Ido split.  However, the 'splinter' in
ativity	or ability to see relationships	between		    this case has survived and the Lojban community is growing
superficially unlike concepts).	 Again,	the null hypothesis at the limit of our	resources to support it.  We recommend
is that	no measurable distinction will exist.		    that anyone	familiar with Loglan but not with Lojban
							    contact us for more	detailed information on	the situation
24.  How can "ease of thought" be measured?  Measuring	    and	comparison between the two versions.
facility with predicate	logic is not enough to establish      Among the	design criteria	for Lojban has been particular
"ease of thought"					    attention to criticisms of the language presented by

							   27


linguists over the past	three decades.	We believe that	we  will tend to involve different sorts of people than	are
have set the Loglan/ Lojban project on an academically	    interested in natural language research questions, although
sound footing, and are seeking continued input and review   there may be some overlap in trying	to use Lojban as a
comments from linguists	as we document the effort.  While   simple model for natural language processing.
we are unfunded	and have not yet been published	in peer-      Lojban's design does recognize that most natural language
reviewed journals, we expect both conditions to	change.	 We usage resembling logical connectives is NOT	truly logical.
do have	linguists actively involved in the design effort    There are grammatical models for non-logical connection
itself,	most notably Dr. John Parks-Clifford, a	professor   built into the language, although these tend to be more
at University of Missouri at St. Louis researching in tense highly marked than logical expressions.
logic, among other areas, who is Vice President	of our	      Lojban has systematic structures for logical negation,
group.							    scalar negation, and metalinguistic	negation, each
  The language has been	demonstrated in	conversation,	    separately expressed.  Particular effort has gone into
although there are no fluent speakers as of yet.  My wife   abstraction	based on Aristotelian models, a
and I and others practice the language in spontaneous	    tense/location/aspect system which can analytically	express
conversation perhaps 2 hours a week.  Some poetry and other an enormous	range of aspects, yet is quite unlike Indo-
original writings in the language have been produced,	    European forms, systems for	metalinguistic expression at a
though most work has been with translations (from English), different 'level' than normal expression, and a system of
most notably Saki's short story	'The Open Window', which    analytically based attitudinal indicators (interjections)
proved especially amenable to translation and exercised	    that include Amerind-like observer-based expressions, modal
areas of the language not often	found in conversation.	    attitudes, and an enormous range of	emotional expression,
  The Loglan Project was originally started to develop a    all	grammatically independent from the rest	of the
language for testing the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.  In	    language.  Lojban also has a system	for unambiguous	reading
addition to supporting this goal, Lojban is designed to	    of mathematical expressions, which is relatively untested
support	other possible experiments in linguistics,	    since such expressions are seldom found in normal
including most significantly the expression of emotions,    conversation.
linguistic typology, and language education techniques.	      Lojban attempts to achieve cultural neutrality, a
  With regard to Sapir-Whorf, the formulation we use is	    necessity for its research goals.  This is primarily
that "the structure of a language constrains the thought of achieved by	minimizing metaphysical	assumptions, and
the culture using that language".  This	formulation relates wherever assumptions must be made, to be super-inclusive of
to grammar as well as semantics, with more design effort    the	range of natural language expressions to minimize at
being placed on	grammatical aspects, presuming that	    least overt	biases.	 There is also particular militancy in
semantics will develop with the	formation of a Lojban-	    watching for hidden	Americanism and	English-language
speaking subculture, and will, if not overtly biased, serve biases, since most of the developers and early speakers are
as one means of	examining for Sapir-Whorf effects.	    native speakers of American	English.  This is believed to
  The main basis for Lojban's use in Sapir-Whorf research   have been generally	successful, but	is an area that	we
is its grammar,	which is based on logical predication.	    particularly welcome close cross-examination.  Of course,
There are also explicit	models for easily expressing first- the	logical	orientation of the grammar is a	planned	bias,
order logical connectives.  The	strong bias towards logical sufficiently extreme that it should	overwhelm minor
structuring would be presumed to have a	measurably sig-	    cultural constraints that are missed.
nificant effect	on expression, and if our formulation of      Typologically, Lojban is SVO or SOV in its unmarked
Sapir-Whorf is valid, on the culture that speaks the	    forms, although all	other word orders are expressible with
language.						    minimal marking.  This typing makes	a presumption of how to
  The language may show	noticeable changes in first-	    interpret 'subject'	in Lojban; the Lojban 'subject'	is
generation Lojban speakers who are native in other	    perhaps better considered as a 'topic'.  Lojban has	no
languages (indeed, apparent effects have been observed	    inherent gender or number, and hence no morphological de-
already, though	it is uncertain	whether	these are true	    clension or	agreement.  As a predicate language, Lojban has
Sapir-Whorf effects).  A true Sapir-Whorf test will	    no distinction between nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
probably involve at-least-2nd generation speakers raised    adverbs, although constructs comparable to each can	be
bilingually in Lojban and a natural language, and speakers  identified.	 Tense/modality/aspect is optional, and	can
from a variety of cultures.  The need to build numbers of   range from simple to enormously complex.  There are	op-
Lojban-speakers	in many	cultures has led to Loglan/Lojban's tional 'case markings' for the arguments of	a predication,
association with the international language movement,	    but	the set	of tags	is not inherently limited or based on a
although that is not the primary purpose for the language.  particular theory of semantic cases.  These	markings occur
  Other	applications, based on Lojban's	unambiguous,	    in pre-position, but are not really	"prepositions",	since
computer-parsable syntax, heavily analytical semantics,	and they can occur in other contexts.  Modification in Lojban
intended cultural neutrality, include multi-lingual machine is left-to-right, with marked reversal and grouping	of
translation using Lojban as an interlingua, use	of Lojban   modifications possible.  Lojban has	two modes of
as a medium for	knowledge representation in computers, and  possessive/associative expression, both preceding and
use as a media for human-computer interface.  Work in all   following a	target argument.  Postposition modification of
of these areas is still	at an early stage, and naturally

							   28


arguments includes both	relative clauses and relative	    forces, but	after a	certain	point the language develops a
phrases.						    momentum of	its own, tending to carry the culture in
  While	the vocabulary of predicates strictly defines	    directions already inherent	in the language.
arguments expressed in a prescribed order (generally
forcing	complex	expressions to the end of a sentence along  4. minakami: (responding to	2.)  I think this is only the
with less frequently stated information), the 'case tag'    weak form of the Whorfian hypothesis. The strong version
system allows free addition of arguments to a predication,  does assert	that the structure and lexicon of a language
thus minimizing	constraints based on the semantics of in-   shapes thought. According to J. R. Anderson:  "Whorf felt
dividual words.	 Lojban	has a system for explicit and	    that such a	rich variety of	terms would cause the speaker
implicit ellipsis, and a specified grammar for incomplete   of the language to perceive	the world differently from a
or partial sentences to	support	pragmatic considerations in person who had only	a single word for a particular
use of the language.  We are especially	interested in	    category." This stronger version of	the hypothesis is
comments regarding other issues	in pragmatics.		    generally considered disproved by Rosch's studies of color
							    vision and similar experiments.

     Computer Network Discussions on Loglan/Lojban and	    5. rjohnson: (responding to	2.)  There are various versions
	    Linguistics	(and Esperanto and ...)		    of the idea	around,	which can be attributed	to von
							    Humboldt, Sapir, Whorf, and	their commentators.  The idea
	    Subject: The Sapir/Whorf Hypothesis		    that language "determines what we can think	about" is a
							    very strong	version	of the hypothesis, probably stronger
  Participants:						    than Sapir would have liked, maybe stronger	than Whorf.
[email protected] (John	Lenarcic)			    These things were not always stated	with perfect clarity
[email protected] (David Pautler)			    and	consistency, though, so	it's difficult to say.
[email protected]	(David M Tate)			      [jfl's version in	1.] is a slightly odd-sounding version
[email protected] (Michael K. Minakami)	    of Whorf's thesis.	It's hard to say if it's a good
[email protected] (R o d Johnson)		    rendering of Whorf into modern terms, but it feels rather
[email protected]				    reductive to me.  At any rate, it's	too narrow:  Whorf was
[email protected] (David Mark)			    concerned with Hopi	versus English way of thinking about
[email protected] (Colin Matheson)			    time in that particular article, but the thesis in general
[email protected]	(Janet M. Swisher)		    isn't strictly limited to that.  Hopi merely provided (or
[email protected] (William Ricker)				    seemed to provide) a striking illustration of two different
							    ways of thinking.  Note that "ways of thinking" is in fact
1. jfl:	  Briefly stated, the [Sapir/Whorf] hypothesis is : rather sloppy here:	Whorf didn't actually investigate the
							    ways Hopis think about time	in any detail at all - he
  " Language shapes the	way we think,			    merely projected his feeling about the language onto their
  and determines what we can think about."		    thinking.  In essence, he assumed the truth	of what	later
							    commentators saw as	a "hypothesis".	 To Whorf, it was
2. pautler: (responding	to 1.)	A professor in pragmatics   almost self-evident.
told me	this spring that the theory only claims	that a
given language forces its users	to mentally keep track of   6. pautler:	(continuation of 2.)  I	believe	the comparison
certain	information like time-of-occurrence, etc. that is   S/W	used to	illustrate this	was the	bookkeeping required by
needed to make correct decisions about tense, etc. that	are a Southwest	Native American	language (Hopi?) regarding the
required to form sentences.				    source or validation of information	- evidently there are
							    markers performing the function of "FOAF", etc. that are as
3. dtate: (responding to 2.)  I	think this understates the  necessary to well-formedness in that language (which does
hypothesis, at least in	Whorf's	version.  Whorf	claimed	    not	mark tense) as tense is	to English (which does not mark
that, since we think in	language, the language in which	we  validation).  Of course, the Native	American language can
think will have	enormous impact	on the ways in which we	    express time-of-occurrence if need be, just	as English can
think, tending to reinforce certain patterns and undermine  express source-of-information, but neither is explicitly
others.	 It could be something as blatant as having the	    required by	the language itself.  I	believe	the traditional
word for "good"	being etymologically related to	that for    example:
"strong", tending to reinforce "might makes right"
thinking, or as	subtle as the lack of a	socially acceptable (~11 Inuit language	words for snow)	and (~1	English	word
passive	voice encouraging thinking of one's self as an	    for	snow)  ==> (Inuit language and English users think
agent and not as an object (or,	of course, the converse).   about snow differently)
  There	is, to be sure,	a "chicken and egg" question here:
is it the language that	shapes the culture, or the culture  might not be due to	S/W and	probably misrepresents their
that shapes the	language?  The answer (IMHO) [Net	    idea.  But I am not	a linguist, nor	have I read their work.
abbreviation: "In my humble opinion"] is "both": the	    I just wanted to suggest that applications of S/W may not
language evolves because of and	in accordance with cultural be what you	actually want to look for.

							   29


							    universals,	as in Berlin and Kay's studies of color	terms.
7. rjohnson: (responding to 6.)	 Yes.  Whorf, though, not   In the huge	gray area, evidence seems hard to come by.  I
Sapir/Whorf.  Whorf, though he had had some training, was   was	briefly	involved with a	cognitive science team a few
basically a gifted amateur; Sapir was less inclined to make years back that was	grappling with some of these questions,
sweeping claims	- he knew how language has a way of stab-   and	it seemed to me	that the task of designing experiments
bing such claims in the	back.				    was	extraordinarily	hard - every approach had serious
  Boas,	in fact, in the	Introduction to	the "Handbook of    pitfalls.  I don't know how	their work turned out, though.
American Indian	Languages" (1911) [introduces the "snow"
example].  (At least this is the point at which	it was	    11.	colin: (responding to 7.)  I agree with	your gut
introduced into	linguistics.)  Geoff Pullum has	recently    feeling.  I	suppose	the trouble is,	as with	many Linguistic
done a fairly comprehensive study of where this	idea comes  issues, that the "truth" of	the matter lies	at such	a level
from and how it	has mutated into "50 words for snow",	    of abstraction that	it's difficult just to talk about it.
"*100* words for snow,"	etc.				    However, here's one	suggestion of one version of the thesis
  I, and I think many other linguists (though not all),	    (count the hedges!).
have a gut feeling that	somewhere, somehow, deep down,	      Perhaps it's true	that the act of	"compressing"
there's	a kernel of truth in the idea, but no attempt to    abstractions into concepts represented by single lexical
frame it as an empirical hypothesis has, to my knowledge,   items or phrases has a qualitative effect on the kinds of
really led anywhere.					    things it is possible to talk about.  Thus although	it's
							    probably the case that one can express any particular
8. hullp: (responding to 7.)  Actually,	several	studies	    concept in any language periphrastically, it might just be
have indeed led	somewhere.  Casagrande's 1950's	studies	    that the ability to	encapsulate things in immediately
demonstrated a so-called Whorfian effect on children's	    transferrable units	affects	the sorts of transfer that are
perception of shape.  The comparison was between Navaho	    possible.  (Where the transfer is of information between
speakers (whose	language mandates the marking of shape with humans.)
inflections) and English speakers.  There have been a few     Is this version of the Sapir/Whorf stuff part of the
others (not many, admittedly) that have	demonstrated	    original, by the way?
similar	effects.  The problem is that most of the tests	of
the hypothesis have been tests of color	perception and	    12.	swsh: (responding to 11.)  No, I don't think so.  In my
categorization.	 Color perception is strongly rooted in	    understanding, Whorf and Sapir were	not interested so much
physiology and is thus uniform across cultures to a large   in what "one can express" in a given language, as in the
degree.	 Any language effects would have to be in a domain  conceptual categories which	underlie grammatical ones and
for which there	is less	evidence for a physical	basis.	    which are used by speakers as a guide to experience.  Thus,
							    the	important thing	in their view is not how many words for
9. dmark: (responding to 8.)  In fact, Lakoff (in "Women,   snow a language has, but what assumptions about things like
Fire, ...") discusses a	study by Kay and Kempton that	    space, time, form, substance, etc.,	are implicit in	the
seemed to clearly demonstrate linguistic relativity in	    language's grammatical categories.	The controversial part
color perception.  Phillip Hull	is correct in pointing out  about what they, particularly Whorf, said is the thesis
the strong physiological basis of color	perception.  Thus   that speakers use these assumptions	to guide their habitual
different color	perception due to language seems pretty	    beliefs and	attitudes, and therefore see them as arising
powerful evidence.  (I could describe the experiment, from  directly from reality, rather than projected on to it.
Lakoff's account, and/or give the full reference, if people   The "Whorfian hypothesis"	is often stated	as having two
want me	to.)						    forms, a "hard" version (language determines thought) and a
							    "soft" version (language and thought are kinda sorta
10. rjohnson: (responding to 8.)  Thanks for this	    related).  From Whorf's writings, it appears that he
information.  I	guess I	was using "led anywhere" in a	    himself held views more towards the	"soft" end of the spec-
somewhat more global sense.  That is, I	know there have	    trum.  He shied away from saying there is a	"correlation",
been a smattering of studies that purport to be	consistent  that being too definite a word, preferring to say that it
with ("confirm"	is too strong, I think)	the S/W	hypothesis  could be shown that	there are cases	where linguistic
- but it doesn't seem that any real coherent picture	    categories are in some way connected to cultural ones, even
emerges	of "thought" as	a whole	being strongly affected	by  if it's not	universally true.  However, it seems to	me that
"language" as a	whole; that is,	we have	little evidence	    it would be	mighty odd to find a language whose grammar
that "Whorfian"	effects	are of fundamental importance to    revealed a categorical system that was otherwise unused by
cognition.  Instead we get hints that there may	be	    speakers, either in	individual cognition, or as part of the
something there, but the results are mixed and often rather attendant culture.
tentative.  Does this fit with your perspective	on things?
(Admittedly, notions like "of fundamental importance" are   13.	wdr: (responding to 11.)  If I understood that
pretty difficult to assess.)				    periphrastic version of the	hypothesis, I think it has as a
  On the other hand, as	you say, the best-known		    corollary that English is not highly suited	to it's	own
disconfirming studies suffer from being	in the relatively   transfer. Which, given the context,	I suspect may have been
few areas where	there probably are reliable hard-wired

							   30


Colin's	point, but if it wasn't, I'll suggest it more	      One: The audio-visual isomorphism.  Presumably, this is
openly.							    an attempt to address the rather poor way that some	written
  Is a natural language	the right language in which to	    languages reflect the spoken language (such	as English).
discuss	the deficiencies of natural languages?		    This fails to predict variations of	accent,	as well	as the
  That it was not was one of the original motivations of    language-specific biases of	speakers - English speakers for
the Loglan/Lojban successor of Esperanto.  Can one of you   instance will probably continue to mark yes-no questions
sci.lang folks translate the S/W hypotheses various	    with a rising tone.	 Of course this	isn't indicated	in the
statements in this newsgroup lately into Lojban	and give us written form, so already the idea of audio-visual
an unbiased account of how manipulable they are	in a non-   isomorphism	is weak	at best.
formal yet unnatural language? [ed.: no	one has	done this
yet - any volunteers?]					    2. lojbab: (responding to 1.)  Yes,	English	speakers
							    probably will.  But	Hindi speakers probably	won't.	Thus
14. pautler: (wrapping up)  Perhaps many of you	are tiring  rising tone	(pitch)	will not be a significant indication in
of the discussion about	the claims made	by S/W,	but I'm	    Lojban.  Now, in the English 'dialect' of Lojban, such
going to take the risk of extending the	debate:		    suprasegmentals will probably be redundant and reinforcing
  Does the S/W hypothesis suggest that we view a particular information	to the truly significant version of the
language as a collection of tools used to achieve social    questioned contained in the	words.	And if for some	other
(communicative,	in particular) goals?  The analogy I have   reason, your voice rises in	pitch, if there	is no 'xu', it
in mind	is this: our ability to	achieve	tasks is determined is not a yes/no question.
by the tools we	have at	hand, which forces us to think	      As an advantage, I suspect that it will be a lot easier
about solving the task primarily in terms of what subtask   to get computers voice-processing the Lojban phonemes than
each tool can achieve.	Of course, we can always attempt to the	English	suprasegmentals	(Anyone	have any actual
invent new tools if they are needed, but invention is	    knowledge on this?)
difficult for both language conventions	and tools, so the
analogy	still holds.					    3. dan: (continuation of 1.)  Furthermore, the idea	of a
  My claim, then, is this: if this is an accurate analogy,  language that assumes all of its speakers will have
then should the	S/W hypothesis be any more surprising than  precisely the same accent is too terrifying	to contemplate,
a claim	that farmers and stockbrokers think differently	    yet	Lojban's writing system	would seem to depend on	this
about the world	due to the different means they	have of	    fact.
interacting with it?
							    4. lojbab: (responding to 3.)  Lojban's prescription says
							    nothing about 'accent'.  Each of the sounds	we've defined
		 ________________________		    as phonemic	has a certain range wherein it is phonemic.
 Subject:  Lojban as seen by the linguistics and cognitive  Lojban 'r' can range from a	full trill to a	simple flap,
		     science community			    for	example, and we've made	no prescription	regarding dark
							    'l'	vs. light 'l'.	Difference in these phonemes will
  Participants:						    result in different	'accents'.  There will probably	be less
[email protected] (Dan Parmenter)			    spread than	most natural languages,	but there will be some
[email protected] (John Cowan)			    spread.
[email protected] (Michael Newton)
[email protected] (Rod Johnson)		    5. cowan: (responding to 3.)  Of course [it's too
[email protected]	(David M Tate)			    terrifying to contemplate]!	 However, this neglects	the
[email protected] (Harold Somers)			    distinction	between	"emic" and "etic" features of the
[email protected]	(Lars Aronsson)			    language.  The claim of audio-visual isomorphism is	not
[email protected] (Bob LeChevalier)		    that every possible	distinction of speech is represented in
[email protected] (Larry P Gorbet)			    the	written	form, but only that all	significant distinc-
[email protected] (Steven Daryl	McCullough)		    tions are so represented.  For example, true-false
[email protected] (David A.	Johns)			    questions may be signalled (among English speakers)	with a
[email protected] (Greg Lee)			    rising tone, but also must be signalled with the prefix
							    word "xu".	The "xu" carries the entire content, and will
1. dan:	(starting the debate - several paragraphs below	    be understood by any fluent	Lojbanist from whatever	back-
elucidate his opinions further)	 I have	been acquainted	    ground.  The tone is superfluous.
with Lojban for	a few years now, and have a few	thoughts on
the matter.						    6. dan: (responding	to 5.)	If every Lojban	speaker	were a
  My overall impression	is that	a monumental effort is	    native English speaker, you	could just as easily argue that
being made by an astonishingly large group of people, and   the	"xu" is	superfluous.  But this is circular reasoning.
that while it is quite well-intentioned, its ultimate goals Is the purpose of Lojban to	be spoken in a dull monotone?
are unattainable at best, and highly suspicious	at worst.   Or do you expect the writing system	to evolve to account
Some minor and major objections:			    for	any variations in tone that might come along?  Suppose
							    some third-generation Lojban speakers always mark yes-no

							   31


questions with a falling tone accompanied by a series of    the	null hypothesis.  To develop Lojban at all, we must
elaborate hand-jives (gestures are expressive too), will    assume SWH.	 If Lojban turns out to	have no	effect on
you mark this in the written version as	well?  How do you   thought, i.e. to be	a mere code, SWH will not be confirmed.
determine what a "significant" feature of the language is?  (This is not to say	it will	be disproved.)

7. cowan: (responding to 6.)  We determine significant	    12.	lojbab:	(responding to 10.)  Assumed to	be what?  True?
features by defining them.  Again, this	is a constructed    No.	 Important enough to test?  Yes.  If Sapir-Whorf is
language, and a	posteriori reasoning appropriate to natural important enough to	test, then Lojban must be designed with
(non-constructed) languages doesn't necessarily	fit all	    features that will likely have a noticeable	effect,	while
cases.							    being sufficiently culturally neutral that non-Lojban
  In the baseline version of Lojban, the way of	marking	a   variables can be at	least statistically removed.
true-false question is to prefix it with "xu".	This is	      The Lojban design	HAS to assume that Sapir-Whorf is true,
true by	definition, a priori.  Once the	language is	    or that design will	be meaningless for experimental
baselined, the normal processes	of linguistic change may    purposes.
indeed alter the marking system	to something involving	      As to whether those working on the language 'tacitly
tone, gesture, or toe-wiggling.	 At that time, Lojban will  assume' Sapir-Whorf, I doubt it.  There are	no doubt many
be a natural language (defined here as one having native    who	believe	SWH true, and a	couple I know of who believe it
speakers) and will need	to be investigated by the methods   false, but are willing to see.  Most are fairly open-
of ordinary synchronic linguistics.			    minded.  In	any case, if we	are being 'good	scientists',
  (When	Bob LeChevalier, the most fluent speaker at	    our	individual opinions on the hypotheses we investigate
present, speaks	in the language, he does tend to talk in a  shouldn't matter, since some degree	of professional
monotone, possibly bending over	backwards to avoid	    detachment is expected.  When I work on Lojban as a
influence from English suprasegmentals.	 He does hesitate   researcher,	I try to turn off that part of me that does
longer between sentences than at other mandatory pauses,    'Lojban promotion' (admittedly a bit more biased).	I rely
though.)						    on peer review to catch any	biases from my personal	views
							    that slip into my work.  Given the wide disparity of views
8. lojbab: (responding to 6.)  That would be a truly odd    among Lojban workers, and our sensitivity towards avoiding
purpose	for a language - to be spoken in a monotone.  :-)   unnecessary	bias, I'm confident that there is no problem.
  The writing system would not need recognize variations in   If Sapir-Whorf (or its equivalent	- since	a lot of people
pitch, gestures, or any	other feature of spoken	language    assume it without even knowing it exists) is tacitly
unless these came to convey variations in meaning that were assumed by the world, it seems an especially important
not already reflected (and reflectable)	in the written lan- question to	investigate scientifically.  If	SWH is used by
guage.	In addition, since human-computer interaction using some to justify racism, some concrete data to attack such
Lojban is intended to be significant in	its usefulness,	it
seems unlikely that there will evolve variations that
cannot be easily recognized AND	reproduced by a	computer
listener/speaker.
  A significant	feature	of a logical language, of course,
is one that affects the	truth conditions of its	statements.
A change or variation in the language would not	be
'significant' unless it	affected such truth conditions.	 A
change which introduced	ambiguity would	obviously be
significant.
9. cowan: (continuation	of 5.)	Note also that audio-visual
isomorphism cuts both ways.  It	ensures	not only that every
"emic" feature of speech is representable in writing, but
also that features of text such	as paragraphing, structural
punctuation, parenthesis, and layout have representations
in speech.  For	example, the word "ni'o" signals a change
of subject and is used to separate spoken paragraphs;
likewise, non-mathematical parentheses are pronounced "to"
for "("	and "toi" for ")".

10. dan: (continuation of 1., from 3.)	TWO: Sapir/Whorf is
tacitly	assumed	by almost everyone that	I've talked to in
connection to Lojban.  This isn't unusual, since it's also
assumed	by an astonishing portion of the world at large.

11. cowan: (responding to 10.)	The Lojban project is
founded	on assuming the	truth of SWH; the falsity of SWH is

							   32


use is more effective than personal distaste.  Just because 18.	lojbab:	(responding to 17.)  Indeed.  I	know that in
a scientific question has political ramifications based	on  the	Loglan/Lojban community, Reed Riner at Northern	Arizona
its possible outcomes does not mean that the question	    and	John Atkins and	Carol Eastman at Washington are
shouldn't be asked, or moreover, shouldn't be answered.	    anthropologists that were/are interested in	S/W.
							      In addition, there is another 'related field' that makes
13. dan: (responding to	12.)  Yes, I'd say that	a	    heavy use of S/W, either directly, or in an	evolved	form.
surprisingly large number of people when informed about	S/W Semiotics apparently uses a	lot of ideas these days	that at
will automatically assume it to	be true.  The issue to me   least tacitly assume some degree of	cultural relativity,
is one of putting the cart before the horse:  to whit, many and	I'm told Umberto Eco, is particularly 'Whorfian' in his
people have astonishingly racist attitudes about a wide	    ideas.  I don't know these things directly,	having no
range of phenomena.  Language is no exception.	If you read meaningful exposure	to semiotics.  My source is Robert
the literature of the whole English First movement, one	    Gorsch at St. Mary's College in CA,	who teaches En-
sees thinly veiled racism of the worst sort.  Also witness  glish/Semiotics/Linguistics	there.	He's been developing an
the thinly veiled classism of most of the prescriptivists - introductory course	in Semiotics showing the evolution of
the goal is to avoid sounding "low class".  Even something  S/W	into current semiotics theories	(incidentally relying
as simple as differing accents within a	homogeneous speech  on Esperanto and Lojban as primary examples).  We published
community can cause people to raise their eyebrows.  Human  his	course outline and bibliography	in a recent issue of
beings seem to have an overwhelming urge to pigeonhole	    our	internal journal, Ju'i Lobypli.
people by any method possible.	What does this have to do
with S/W?  Well, given that nobody seems particularly	    19.	dan: (responding to 18.)  Eco is interested in a number
satisfied either way with the results of actual	psy-	    of theories	that are out of	vogue among Chomskian
cholinguistic tests that have been tried, if someone	    linguists.	He also	seems to have an interest in the so-
believes S/W then they can choose to ignore any	test	    called "meaning-based" theories of language, posited by
results	that seem to go	against	it and start to	make some   people like	Schank,	in the NLP [natural language
pretty frightening statements.				    processing]	community.  He devotes some space to Schank's
							    theory of conceptual dependency in several books (titles
14. dan: (continuation of 1., from 10.)	 What I'm getting   forgotten ...sorry!).
at is that there is a serious danger that people who	      Many of fields related and unrelated to semiotics	also
believe	in the S/W hypothesis will use this belief to make  make use of	certain	Whorfian arguments.  Some feminist
claims about their language being superior to someone	    theorists have an axe to grind about how language is used
else's.	 The empirical basis for these claims has already   to oppress women.
been discussed,	so I won't get into it,	except to say that
I remain unconvinced by	the S/W	hypothesis.		    20.	dan: (continuing 17.)  To me, the idea of linguistic
							    equality - that all	languages are more or less created
15. cowan: (responding to 10 and 14.)  One of the major	    equal, is a	much more egalitarian view.  It	jibes well with
workers	in Lojban [ed.:	pc] believes that SWH is in fact    my notion that all people are created equal.  This
false.	There is as diverse a variety of views on SWH in    principle forms the	basis for much in the way of my
the Lojban community as	on any other subject.		    political views.  I	don't want to get into a debate	here
							    about the politics of language, but	it's something I feel
16. lojbab: (responding	to 14.)	 Yes, there is [a serious   very strongly about.
danger].  But there is also the	chance that if SWH is true,
that the reverse will happen.  Based on	the natural	    21.	lgorbet: (responding to	20.)  The phrase in Dan's
selection paradigm (also perhaps questionable with regard   recent posts that confuses me a lot	is "all	languages are
to languages - but the analogy is useful), if one language  equal". So far as I	can see	that may well -	probably has
is 'superior' to another in some small area (such as	    nothing to do with whether (some version or	other of) S/W
mathematical thinking -	as in the previous example), the    is true or not.
fact that the other language survives indicates	that it	      I	suspect	the most common	belief of linguists who	think
also has some compensating advantages that suit	its niche.  about S/W at all is	that (a) S/W is	true; and (b) all
  Thus Sapir-Whorf might help us see the virtue	in all	    languages are "equal".  AND	you seem to be assuming	that
languages and cultures.	 I certainly don't think that if    the	truth of S/W entails inequality	(in some unstated
Lojban was proved able to assist or improve logical	    sense) of languages. All S/W says, even in the strongest
thinking, that it should displace English or any other	    versions I know anyone competent who believes, is that lan-
language.  To borrow someone else's line, Lojban becomes    guages are different in ways that leads their speakers to
another	tool in	the linguistic tool chest.  You	learn it    tend to think differently.
like an	English	speaker	learns French or FORTRAN, to meet a   Thanks to	work by	lots of	folk over the past half	century
communication need that	is not well served by English.	    (oops, more	than that), it's pretty	clear that different
							    languages have lots	in common as well as some striking
17. dan: (responding to	16.)  I	am told	that among	    differences. So probably most of us	(my wild supposition, I
anthropologists, S/W in	some form, is popular.		    admit) think that the impact of a true S/W would not be all
							    that huge a	difference. But	a difference in

							   33


conceptualization and knowledge	is not the same	thing as    'cat', cidja 'food', lante 'can', and gacri	'cover'	take
inequality.						    care of all	the content words, each	of which (luckily for
  It almost seems to me	that to	assume that different ways  me)	has a single-word Lojban equivalent.  I	will comment on
of thinking are	unequal	ways of	thinking plays into the	    the	function words I use as	I use them.
hands of racists even more...				      It should	be stated from the start that Lojban interprets
  This is NOT a	flame. You raise some important	issues,	    dyadic compounds as	<modifier> followed by <modificand>, in
many of	which I	agree with, especially about the ways our   other words	AN [adjective-noun order], although this can be
work can get abused by those with an unsavory agenda.	    changed with the particle "co".
  [The discussion of Sapir-Whorf and its possible racist
use continued for quite	a while, and is	omitted.]	    [numbers relate back to English in 24.]
							      1) "slasi	mlatu cidja lante gacri".  This	form is	totally
22. dan	(continuation of 1., from 14.):	 This empirical	    unmarked, and has the meaning of the English 1) because
basis is something that	I use as a foundation for my	    Lojban associates left-to-right.  In other words, "slasi
personal ideological beliefs with regard to such issues	as  mlatu cidja	lante" modifies	"gacri", "slasi	mlatu cidja"
English-only laws and prescriptivism (by the likes of	    modifies "lante", "slasi mlatu" modifies "cidja", and
Safire,	Lederle, Simon et al.).	 It seems to me	that the    "slasi" modifies "mlatu".
Lojbanists, who	are already claiming that the language	      2) "slasi	mlatu bo cidja lante gacri".  The function word
makes them think more clearly on certain things	are setting "bo" causes	the two	content	words surrounding it to	be most
themselves up for a type of elitism that I find		    closely associated.	 So "mlatu" modifies "cidja".
frightening.						    Otherwise, left-to-right modification remains intact, so
  THREE: Lojban's allegedly unambiguous	syntax.	 The bottom that "slasi" modifies "mlatu bo cidja", etc.
line is	that "plastic cat food can cover" is still	      3) "slasi	je mlatu bo cidja lante	gacri".	 Here we make
ambiguous in Lojban.					    two	coordinated claims about the "lante", namely that it is
							    of type "mlatu bo cidja" (a	cat-food can) and that it is
23. cowan: (responding to 22.)	This English utterance is   "slasi" (plastic).	So we insert the particle "je" which
ambiguous in three different ways.  Syntactically, it might means this type of "and".  (There are several Lojban words
be a noun phrase (a kind of cover) or a	sentence (asserting for	"and", but "je"	is the one that's grammatical in this
that plastic cat food is capable of covering something).    context).
Lojban does not	have this kind of ambiguity:  the first	      4) "slasi	mlatu cidja lante bo gacri".  Here "lante" and
would be "lo slasi mlatu cidja lante gacri" and	the second  "gacri" are	grouped, so that "slasi	mlatu cidja" (food for
would be "lo slasi mlatu cidja ka'e gacri".		    plastic cats) modifies "lante bo gacri" (can-type-of
							    cover).
24. harold: (responding	to 23.)	 Well, I think you'll find    5) "slasi	mlatu bo cidja lante bo	gacri".	 Here we have
that syntactically the phrase is MUCH more ambiguous: as a  three components grouped in	left-to-right order:  "slasi",
noun phrase, ignoring the semantic ambiguity of	any	    "mlatu bo cidja", and "lante bo gacri".  Therefore "slasi
noun+noun pairing (e.g.	"cat food" = food for cats, food    mlatu bo cidja" modifies "lante bo gacri", making this a
made of	cats, food which looks like a cat; "can	cover" =    plastic cat-food type of can-cover.
cover for a can, cover made out	of a can; "plastic cat"	=     6) "slasi	bo mlatu cidja bo lante	gacri".	 Here again we
cat made out of	plastic, cat which behaves like	plastic,    have three components, but different ones from those
cat which belongs to plastic, etc) it has readings [numbers appearing in 5).
added for later	cross-reference]:			      8) "slasi	je ke mlatu cidja lante	ke'e gacri".  Here we
							    introduce the new particles	"ke" and "ke'e".  These	group
   a cover for plastic cat food	cans i.e.		    in the same	way that "bo" does, but	everything between "ke"
   a cover for cans which contain plastic cat food i.e.	    and	"ke'e" is grouped.  Wherever "bo" appears between two
1  a cover for cans which contain food for plastic cats	or  words, it can be replaced by "ke" before the first and
2  a cover for cans which contain plastic food for cats	or  "ke'e" after the second.  So 4) can	be rewritten as	"slasi
3  a cover for plastic cans which contain cat food or else  mlatu cidja	ke lante gacri", with elision of "ke'e"	at the
   a can cover for plastic cat food i.e.		    end	of the phrase.	This is	an example of a	general	point
4  a can cover for food	for plastic cats or		    about Lojban:  most	things are expressible using both
5  a can cover for plastic food	for cats or else	    "forethought" and "afterthought" forms, comparable to the
   a food can cover for	plastic	cats i.e.		    difference in English between "both	A and B" and "A	and B".
6  a cover for a food can for plastic cats or		    In this case, we need the whole of "mlatu cidja lante" to
7  a can cover for food	for plastic cats or else	    group as one modifier, so "bo" is not usable.  We also need
   a cat food can cover	made of	plastic	i.e.		    "je" because again two claims are being made, that the
   a cover, made of plastic, for cat food cans i.e.	    cover is both plastic and for cat-food cans.
8  a cover, made of plastic, for cans for cat food or	      9) "slasi	je mlatu bo cidja bo lante gacri".  Here "bo"
9  a cover, made of plastic, for food cans for cats	    serves us again, in	contradistinction to 8), because of an
							    additional rule that comes into play when "bo" appears on
25. cowan: (responding to 24.)	Let me render each of these both sides of an element: it is right-grouping.  So	whereas
forms into Lojban.  As a glossary, slasi 'plastic', mlatu   "A B C" means that "A B" modifies "C", "A bo B bo C" means

							   34


that A modifies	"B bo C".  So here we claim that the cover  in each word is at least two-ways ambiguous	(all are both
is both	plastic	and is of type "cat food-can".		    nouns and verbs, and some are also adjectives).
  There	are other ways to express these	ideas if the
constraint on ordering the content words is relaxed.  There 30.	aronsson: (responding to 28.)  What if the intended
are also lots of other possibilities expressible by the	    grouping was "(plastic and ((cat type of food) type	of
Lojban syntax, such as "slasi bo mlatu bo cidja	bo lante bo can)) type of cover"?  That	is a plastic cover for these
gacri",	which might be a plastic type of food-can cover	for cans (which	are probably made of tin - I would consider
use by cats.  In addition, "je"	(and) can be replaced by    this more probable)	rather than a generic cover for	these
"ja" (inclusive	or) or "jonai" (exclusive or) or any of	the plastic cans.  Would the sentence still translate into "lo
other Boolean relationship, or by various non-logical	    slasi je mlatu bo cidja lante gacri"?  Could the same
connectives such as "joi" (mass	mixture):  "slasi joi mlatu sentence also mean "(((plastic and cat) type of food) type
cidja" would be	food made from plastic and from	cats [mixed of can) type of cover"?  (Never mind why anybody would make
together].						    plastic food - that	is semantics!)	If any of the above,
							    Lojban must	be considered ambiguous.
26. cowan: (continuing 23.)  In	the English utterance, it
is unclear exactly what	modifies what.			    31.	cowan: (responding to 30.)  No.	 "(plastic and ((cat
							    type of food) type of can) type of cover" would be "lo
27. harold: (responding	to 26.,	continuing 24.)	 I don't    slasi je ke	mlatu cidja lante ke'e gacri", where "ke" and
think so. Of the above interpretations,	there is a more	or  "ke'e" are logical parentheses.  "(((plastic and cat) type
less clear ranking of preference, notwithstanding some	    of food) type of can) type of cover)" would	be "lo slasi je
context	which promotes an unusual reading (e.g.	a story	    mlatu cidja	lante gacri" because "je" has higher precedence
about plastic cats):  I	find (8) the most plausible, with   than concatenation,	though lower than "bo".
(3) next best.	The least plausible are	the ones involving
plastic	cats or	plastic	food.				    32.	aronsson: (continuing 30.)  Or what if both modifiers
							    have a more	complex	form? In the example above, the
28. cowan: (continuing 23., from 26.)  So Lojban's unmarked modifier plastic has the simplest possible form, but
form is	grouped	left-to-right unambiguously, and other	    consider a phrase like (I wrote this with Emacs LISP mode!)
groupings can be unambiguously marked by the insertion of
appropriate structure words.				     ((some-special type of plastic)
							      and
29. harold: (responding	to 28.,	continuing 27.)	 It is	      (((cat or	dog)
relatively easy	to construct plausible noun phrases		type of	food)
consisting of five consecutive nouns for all the above		  type of can))
patterns, just by substituting more appropriate	nouns: e.g. type of cover
  1 tabby cat food can cover
  2 soya-bean cat food can cover			      Here, parenthesis	are needed not only for	the general
  3 (already plausible)					    grouping, but also to unambiguously	determine the
  4 =1							    precedence of "and"	and "or"!  IMHO	[Net abbreviation: "In
  5 =2							    my humble opinion"], there are exactly two ways of
  6 =1							    designing a	ambiguous-free language, none of which will
  7 =1							    make it look like any human	language: 1) Using parenthesis
  8 (preferred reading)					    as in LISP [see examples above] and	2) Using only very
  9 (already plausible)					    short sentences as in ordinary computer machine language.
							    In case 2, the example would read:
  And of course, we can	construct longer sequences of noun
phrases, with even larger numbers of ambiguities.	      Cover.
  Can Lojban handle all	of these, and, more important,	      Cover  for      can.
would we want a	language to do so?  The	point is that most    Can    for      food.
of the readings	are implausible	for semantic reasons, but     Food   for      cat.
all (or	most) groupings	are possible, given the	appropriate   Cover  made of  plastic.
words.	The same thing happens with PP attachment by the
way.  The problem is that you cannot tell a priori which    33.	cowan: (responding to 32.)  The	first method
grouping will be plausible:  NLP [natural language	    (parenthesis) is employed, using "ke"/"ke'e" parenthesis
processing] programs have to try all possible groupings	and marks as needed.  This is not supposed to "look like any
then test them for semantic coherence, a terrible waste	of  natural language"; this is precisely the area where	Lojban
effort with big	noun phrases or	sequences of ambiguous	    differs from all natural languages,	and constitutes	the
words like:						    evidence that Lojban is not	an "{English, Chinese, etc.}-
							    based code".
    Gas	pump prices rose last time oil stocks fell	      "And" and	"or" have the same precedence and are left
							    associative; simple	concatenation is also left associative,

							   35


whereas	"bo" (which semantically is the	same as		    one	fish Y,	such that X loves Y."  The other interpretation
concatenation, i.e. undefined) is high-precedence and right could be given by "converting" the predicate with the
associative.						    particle "se".  This operation reverses the	order of the
							    arguments to a predicate.  "pa finpe se prami ro nanmu",
34. cowan: (continuing 23., from 28.)  On a third level, a  literally "one fish	be-loved-by all	man" means "There
phrase like "cat food" is ambiguous semantically.  Is it    exists one fish Y, for all men X, such that	X loves	Y."
food for cats or food consisting of cats?  Here	Lojban	    Note that conversion is analogous to the passive voice but
really is ambiguous, but the ambiguity is semantic not	    has	no semantic significance other than this inversion of
syntactic.  The	three main kinds of ambiguity in Lojban	    quantifiers.
(this kind, ellipsis, and the ambiguity	of names (which	      Lojban also has machinery	for expressing the quantifiers
Sam?)) are all semantic	in nature.  As in any natural	    externally in a prenex, terminated by the word "zo'u".  So
language, any of these ambiguities can be "expanded" on	the another set	of Lojban paraphrases for your sentences above
semantic level by adding more information:  "lo	mlatu	    is "ro da poi nanmu	pa de poi finpe	zo'u da	prami de",
cidja" (a cat type of food) could become "da poi cidja loi  literally "all X which is-a-man, one Y which is-a-fish, X
mlatu" (something which	is-food-for the-mass-of	cats).	    loves Y"; and "pa de poi finpe ro da poi nanmu zo'u	da
							    prami de", literally "one Y	which is-a-fish, all X which
35. dan: (responding to	34.)  Semantic ambiguity is present is-a-man, X	loves Y".  Presumably, a transformational
all over the place.  How does Lojban handle issues like	    grammar of Lojban would derive both	of these surface
quantifier scope ambiguity?  In	English, a sentence like    structures (with and without prenex) from the same
"Every man loves a fish" is ambiguous.	If Lojban merely    underlying deep structures.
paraphrases such utterances, to	two separate utterances	      What Lojban does not have	is any sentence	which means
along the lines	of:					    both of your two forms ambiguously.
  "For all x, There exists a y such that x loves y"
  "There exists	a y for	all x such that	x loves	y"	    40.	lojbab:	(continuation of 37, in	response to 35.)  You
while tolerating some version of the original utterance,    cannot 'do the same	thing in English'.  Even if the	two
than nothing has been accomplished.  I can do the same	    English paraphrases	are considered 'standard English' (and
thing in English.					    many linguists do not, identifying them as a jargon),
							    neither is the same	as Dan's original.  Fill in 'man' for
36. cowan: (responding to 35.)				    'x'	and 'fish' for 'y', and	the result is ungrammatical:
  1) Lojban has	mechanisms for setting quantifier scopes,
involving explicit quantifiers appearing in a prenex.	    *"For all man, there exists	a fish such that man loves
  2) Loglan/Lojban has never claimed to	be free	of semantic   fish."
ambiguity.  Your original objection 3 [see 22. above]	    *"There exists a fish for all man such that	man loves
(refers	to "allegedly unambiguous syntax", but on	      fish."
investigation your objections are to semantic rather than
syntactic ambiguity.  Our claims are:  a) Lojban is free of It takes some extensive manipulations to turn these	into
phonological, morphological, and syntactic ambiguity, and   grammatical	sentences, and the results are not 'obviously'
b) Lojban semantic ambiguity is	present	only in	clearly	    the	same as	the English original.  These same manipulations
marked places within the language: a Lojbanist knows when   do not suffice for all possible substitutions: if 'x' is
he/she is using	an ambiguous form, and can replace it as    'George' and 'y' is	'fish',	or if 'x' is 'George' and 'y'
needed with unambiguous	ones.				    is 'Mary', you have	to perform different transforms.  In
							    Lojban, the	transforms are independent of the value.
37. lojbab: (responding	to 35.)	 I disagree [with dan].
For one	thing, if Lojban can express the multiple meanings  41.	aronsson: (responding to 34.)  I fail to see the
better and more	clearly	than English, and if the	    difference.	 When designing	an artificial language one
expressions can	be more	easily manipulated logically, this  could outlaw all use of modifiers without modifier
would presumably 'enhance logical thinking' if SWH is true. indicators (prepositions or	similar).  Thus	it would have
  Lojban doesn't 'tolerate some	version	of the original' in been possible for the Lojban designers to make "cat	food"
the sense that the parallel translation	to "Every man loves illegal, only allowing "food for cats" or "food made-of
a fish"	- "ro nanmu cu prami pa	finpe" is not equivalent to cats".  If they did	not do this, they obviously failed to
both English paraphrases.				    design an ambiguity-free language.

38. dan: (responding to	37.)  So what's	the gloss of the    42.	cowan: (responding to 41.)  We didn't want to make the
Lojban sentence?  Which	reading	does it	correspond to?	Is  language semantically unambiguous.
there a	quick and easy way to disambiguate?		      1) The language is phonologically, morphologically, and
							    syntactically unambiguous; and
39. cowan: (responding to 38.)	The Lojban rule	is that	      2) the language is semantically ambiguous	only in
quantifiers are	applied	in the order in	which they appear   specified areas, of	which this is one (making open com-
in the sentence, so "ro	nanmu cu prami pa finpe", literally pounds by concatenation).
"all man love one fish"	means "For all men X, there exists

							   36


43. dan: (continuation of 1., from 22.)	 Natural languages  complete prescription it has a lot better likelihood of re-
are not	unambiguous.  From the acquisition side, ambiguous  sistance to	'undesirable' change.  There is	no way to tell
languages are much easier to learn for a child than a	    if the misuse of 'hopefully' or split infinitives would
logical	language would be.  The	principles of Universal	    have entered English if a) there had not already been a
Grammar	[UG] do	not seem to produce unambiguous	languages,  tolerance in English for non-standard usages of this type
and all	natural	languages are constructed according to the  and	b) either of these truly resulted in mis-communication.
principles of UG.					    Note that 'misplaced modifiers', which can in some
							    instances cause miscommunication, are a different question,
44. cowan: (responding to 43.)	A lot of unproven	    and	are probably frowned on	by most	speakers IF they become
assumptions here.  Common assumptions, yes, but	still	    aware of the ambiguity.  In	Lojban,	of course, the speaker
unproven.  We simply don't know	whether	a child	could	    WILL be more aware of the ambiguity	- at least so we hope.
become competent in Lojban.  Maybe when	the language is
complete and documented, somebody will be inspired to start
raising	bilingual children.  There are native speakers of
Esperanto, after all, whose parents have no other language
in common.

45. kimba: (responding to 43.)	If you're going	to get
stuck into people for assuming Sapir/ Whorf, I think you
had better not be so blase about assuming the existence	of
"the principles	of UG".	The way	you throw it in
"jargonwise" I assume you mean the Chomskian notion, which
will meet with plenty of disagreement.	I suppose you could
claim to mean any statements about properties which all/no
languages have,	but then the 2nd clause	is vacuous.

46. dan: (responding to	45.)  I	do tacitly assume UG.  To
me, it seems a whole lot easier	to swallow than	SW, or
other theories of linguistic relativism.

47. dtate: (responding to 46.)	What a strange comment.
  As far as I can tell,	UG (as a hypothesis about language)
and SW (as a hypothesis	about language and thought) are
independent.  Buying into UG wouldn't make me more or less
apt to buy into	S/W, nor vice versa.  They're certainly	not
competing theories.  They address totally different topics.
  I think the giveaway here is the phrase "linguistic
relativism".  I	can't tell from	context	exactly	what Dan
means by this.	It looks like the link is something like
"S/W says that how you think is	influenced by what language
you think in; UG says there's an underlying deep structure
common to all languages; conflict".  But of course there is
no conflict; every language has	its own	grammatical and
etymological idiosyncrasies, whether deep structure exists
or not,	and these idiosyncrasies are the fuel for S/W.	The
existence of deep structure cannot refute the fact that
languages differ in significant	ways, any more than a proof
of S/W would disprove the existence of deep structure
common to all languages.

48. lojbab: (responding	to 43.)	 Whether UG is 'real', a
question better	discussed by others, I know of no useful
evidence for the claim [that UG	forbids	unambiguous
languages].  That there	is no unambiguous language today is
irrelevant, since nearly all languages evolved from some
earlier	language, interacting with other languages, etc.
Most sources of	ambiguity probably can be tied to these
evolutionary processes.	 Lojban	might also succumb to such
ambiguity, but as an a priori language constructed after
the printing press, having (unlike other languages) a

							   37


49. dan: (continuation of 1., from 43.)	 In the	unlikely    difficult clusters like *td	or *fz;	we also	limit which
event that a native Lojban speaker ever	exists,	it will	    consonant clusters can be used initially to	a subset.
probably actually be speaking its parent native	language      Pauses and glottal stops are the "same" in Lojban	in the
with some version of Lojban vocabulary.			    sense that they are	allophones.  In	German,	the phones [r]
							    and	[R] are	the "same" in exactly the same sense: they are
50. cowan: (responding to 49.)	I presume you mean	    allophones of /r/ in free variation.
"parents' native language".  As	I mentioned above, its
parents	might not have the same	native language.	    60.	lojbab:	(responding to 55.)  Tone is reflected poorly
							    or not-at-all in writing systems of	the world, as is pitch
51. dan: (continuation of 1., from 49.)	 But even that is   and	speech rhythm.	Audio-visual isomorphism therefore
unlikely since even the	phonology (like	everything else	in  precluded these being critical to disambiguation and we
the language) is arbitrary, and	it is questionable how easy chose better ways to convey	the equivalent meanings.  In
it would be for	a child	to learn.			    each case where we did so, a similar mechanism is found in
							    some natural languages.  For example, in French "est-ce
52. rjohnson: (responding to 51.)  Isn't the phonology of   que" almost	exactly	parallels Lojban 'xu'.
any language arbitrary in this sense?  No language avails
itself of all the possibilities.			    61.	dan: (responding to 60.)  Which	is one of the many
							    reasons that linguists concentrate on spoken language.
53. dan: (responding to	52.)  Yes, but certain combinations
are unlikely to	occur.					    62.	lojbab:	(continuation of 60.)  Pause in	Lojban is used
							    only to preserve morphological distinctions.  For example,
54. cowan: (responding to 53.)	I don't	understand this	    you	must pause before a [word-initial] vowel to protect
claim.	The phonology is the least arbitrary thing about    against it being absorbed into the previous	word either as
the language.  Lojban has six vowels and 18 consonants,	all a final vowel in a consonant-final word or as a diphthong.
of which are exceedingly familiar and found in many	    A glottal stop provides similar separation of sounds; hence
languages world-wide:  German, for example, has	all of them it is phonemically equivalent to a pause.
(although Lojban 'j' is	rare in	German and found mostly	in    In neither case was the decision arbitrary; we had a good
borrowings from	French).  On the suprasegmental	level,	    reason for each.  This is in general true throughout Lojban
Lojban has two levels of stress	(primary and weak) and	    - a	decision to choose one form over many was primarily to
significant pauses; where "pause" may represent	either a    achieve unambiguity.  In other circumstances, we chose the
complete silence or a glottal stop.  Tone is not signifi-   least restrictive form possible (thus making tense,	number,
cant, as mentioned above.				    gender, etc. optional and hence more highly	marked forms).

55. dan: (responding to	54.)  See what I mean about	    63.	dan: (continuation of 1., from 51.)  In	typically
arbitrary?  The	Lojban engineers have decided that tone	    blundering fashion,	the Lojban engineers have ignored this
isn't important	and that pauses	are the	same as	glottal	    issue, concentrating entirely on the learnability issue for
stops.	This is	lunacy!					    SECOND language acquisition, that is, adults learning a
							    second language, with no native competence.
56. rjohnson: (responding to 54. and 55, also 1.-8.)  By
the way, both of you [cowan and	dan] are abusing the term   64.	cowan: (responding to 63.)  (You raise an interesting
"tone".	 You're	talking	about pitch.  Tone, by definition,  side issue here.  Do you argue a priori that persons
involves significant pitch contrasts.  You can't have tone  learning a language	as adults cannot achieve competence
be unimportant in a language.  If morphemes are	systemati-  which is empirically indistinguishable from	that of	native
cally contrastive in pitch, the	language has tone; if not,  speakers?)
there is no tone.
							    65.	dan: (responding to 64.)  I guess I do.	 A Native
57. dan: (responding to	56.)  Guilty as	charged.  Sorry	    French speaker might learn English well enough to be
about that.						    indistinguishable from a native English speaker, but he or
							    she	will not have native competence.  In other words, you
58. cowan: (responding to 56.)	Thanks for this	correction. cannot ask that speaker a question regarding something like
							    say, contraction and get a truthful	answer.
59. cowan: (responding to 55.)	Of course it's arbitrary in
the sense that we select some features of the total human   66.	daj: (responding to 65.)  Even worse, you would	never
phonological repertoire	and not	others,	but so does every   be able to use this	speaker	as a guinea pig	in a SWH test,
natural	language.  The phonemes	we use are found in many    since he would be a	native speaker of two languages, so his
natural	languages, and there exists at least one natural    perception of the world would be conditioned by both.  This
language (viz. German) that contains all of them.  The	    would be true for any bilingual speaker, it	seems to me.
consonant clusters and diphthongs we use are also all to be So you'll never be able to test the	SWH until you have a
found in natural languages.  We	go to some pains to prevent "pure strain" of Lojban speakers.


							   38


67. cowan: (responding to 66.)	Some Lojbanists	agree, and  there is a theory or not?  Is he claiming that certain
say we will need to wait for a second generation.  Another  combinations won't occur?  He seems	to be claiming that
viewpoint is that by having people who speak		    Lojban has combinations that cannot	occur but gives	no
Lojban+English,	Lojban+French, Lojban+Vietnamese,	    examples.  He'll have trouble finding them.
Lojban+Navajo, etc. etc. we will be able to factor out the    We did indeed take phonological universals into account
Lojban contribution when compared with people bilingual	in  in several ways. In	the first place, as John Cowan
two natural languages.					    mentions, the set of permitted sounds was selected as a
  ("Bilingual" here means "bilingual within the	acquisition subset of those found in many languages.  We constrained
period".)						    consonant clusters by restrictive rules that recognize
							    phonological properties like voiced/voiceless assimilation
68. dan: (continuation of 65.)	E.g. In	English, one can    and	included redundancy as a criteria in assigning words,
contract words like "he" and "is", but only in particular   reducing the number	of minimal pairs distinctions.	We
circumstances.	Hence:					    added the apostrophe to prevent unwanted diphthongization;
							    it represents devoicing of the glide between two adjacent
  He's a nice boy					    vowels.
  Isn't	he a nice boy?/* yes, he's			      In addition, the frequency of sounds in predicate	words
							    should statistically parallel the sum of the corresponding
The starred sentence is	ungrammatical, the contraction is   frequencies	in our six source languages.  (For those
not acceptable in that position.  It is	acceptable in the   unfamiliar,	most of	Lojban's predicate root	words are
first sentence.	 A native French speaker who knows English  formed by maximizing the appearance	of phoneme patterns
might be able to guess on that,	but he or she certainly	    found in those source languages weighted by	approximate
would NOT have a reliable intuition on the matter.	    number of speakers.)
							      I	would say that more time has been spent	overall	during
69. rjohnson: (responding to 68.)  I have to agree with	Dan Loglan/Lojban's history on the interaction between
here, sort of.	I don't	think the distinction to be made is phonology and morphology than on any other single feature
between	L1 and L2 competence, though, but between critical- of the language.  This is probably because it is the best
period learning	and post-critical-period (or "adult")	    documented feature of the design and also the most easily
learning.  I think it's	pretty clear that they're two	    compared to	other languages.
different processes (though of course they may share some
features).  An adult learner may indeed	learn a	language    74.	cowan: (responding to 63, continuation of 70.)	What we
well-enough to pass an operationalist sort of test (i.e.,   don't know is whether the grammar is learnable by a	child.
be indistinguishable from a native speaker), but shouldn't  We won't know that until the experiment is tried, first by
be taken as a reliable judge of	grammaticalness.	    raising a bilingual	or trilingual child, and then eventu-
							    ally as part of a community	of monolingual speakers.
70. cowan: (responding to 63, continuation of 64.)  We know
that the phonology is learnable	by children, because it	is  75.	lojbab:	(responding to 63.)  We've hardly ignored the
a subset of phonologies	which children can and do learn.    question [of learnability by children].  However, from what
We have	every reason to	believe	that the vocabulary is	    I've read, children	learn languages	from adult role	models.
learnable:  the	words are similar in morphology	to those    We need adult fluent speakers therefore in order to	teach
existing in natural languages, and the consonant clusters   children.  Within the next two decades at least, all such
and diphthongs are all to be found in natural languages.    adults will	be 2nd language	speakers.  So why not
							    concentrate	now on what we can do something	about.
71. dan: (responding to	70.)  Yes, but if there	is a theory
of phonological	universals, then it is argued that certain  76.	dan: (responding to 75.)  My point from	my first
combinations simply won't ever occur.  Did the Lojban	    posting on has been	that I can't imagine any child being
engineers take this into account, accept at the	most	    able to acquire something as baroque as Lojban in its
rudimentary level?  I doubt it.				    current form.  My understanding of acquisition is that non-
							    ambiguity is sacrificed in favor of	learnability.
72. cowan: (responding to 71.)	What do	you call
"rudimentary"?						    77.	cowan: (responding to 76.)  Maybe so.  After all, the
							    English my daughter	spoke at the age of two	was hardly
[Brief summary of Lojban phonology omitted.]		    "acceptable" as a full adult English, although now (at
							    three) her English is clearly acceptable (she seems	to be a
  The rules are	arbitrary, yes,	but I should like to be	    bit	in advance of her age-mates in this respect).  There is
shown wherein they are unlearnable.  Furthermore, they need no reason to think that a Lojban-speaking child would be
to be known only to people inventing new words:	several	of  different.
them are relaxed for borrowings	and names.		      In one respect, some of the simpler Lojban constructions
							    like observatives (bare predicators	without	arguments) are
73. lojbab: (responding	to 71.)	 An interesting		    more analogous to young-child linguistic forms.  The
conditional, that first	sentence.  Is Dan claiming that	    English utterance "Dog!" is	a bit deviant, in that English-

							   39


speakers would think it	rather odd for an adult	to say	      (3) distributional irregularity -	certain	combinations of
simply "Dog!" on seeing	a dog, but for a child this	    forms (or features)	are not	permitted, for instance	when
utterance would	be quite acceptable.  The exact	Lojban	    obligatory phonological changes eliminate some phone(me)
translation "gerku", on	the other hand,	is fully	    combinations;
grammatical and	not at all deviant.			      (4) form class irregularity - it is not possible to
							    distinguish	forms or their categories directly from	their
78. lojbab: (responding	to 76.)	 Baroque?  Compared to	    pronunciation, as when a phonological change is extended
natural	languages, Lojban is incredibly	simple,	and	    from word-internal to cross	word boundaries, making	it more
children acquire natural languages (else they would not	be  difficult to tell where words begin	and end.
'natural').  Now whether Lojban	will be	seen as	simple to a
child is a valid question, but there is	no reason to	      Then it's	interesting to catalog the various ways	that
believe	otherwise, and we'll know soon enough.		    changes which remedy one sort of irregularity may create
  How can non-ambiguity	be sacrificed in favor of	    others.
learnability in	natural	languages acquisition?	They aren't
unambiguous in the first place.	 To whatever extent there   81.	lojbab:	(responding to 80.)  Each of these has a
IS unambiguity,	the sheer complexity and irregularity of    corresponding 'ambiguity', as well,	in which various
most of	the language would overwhelm this.  Lojban, being   degrees of inconsistency and inconstancy exist in the rules
so much	simpler	to express unambiguously, MIGHT	be able	to  for	building and interpreting forms	of each	of these types.
be acquired unambiguously or at	least relatively so (with   Lojban has defined regularity and unambiguity in the last
the child growing into more accurate usage with	age and	    three.  We can expect to directly observe the causes and
understanding just as children of the natural languages	    effects that result	in changes in these areas.
do).
							    82.	lojbab:	(continuation of 75., responding to 63.)  There
79. dan: (responding to	78.)  I	was suggesting that	    are	several	Lojbanists that	have indicated intent to try to
ambiguous languages are	easier to learn	than unambiguous    raise their	children as bilingual Lojban/natural-language
ones.  There aren't any	unambiguous natural languages that  speakers, probably the best	that can and should be
I know of, so it's difficult to	test this.		    attempted until/unless Lojban proves its value.  I cer-
  An unambiguous language would	require	enough additional   tainly wouldn't ask	anyone to raise	children solely	Lojban-
baggage, that it would make learning it	unwieldy.  An	    speaking; it would smack of	human-experimentation to me (an
ambiguous language has fewer rules.  And just for the	    issue I'm fairly sensitive on).
record,	let's get things straight with regard to our
definition of "rules".	By rules, I mean rules that are	    83.	dan:  Some Lojban propaganda claims that the language
used to	characterize the language, not rules in	the pre-    has	been characterized by a	transformational grammar, but
scriptive sense.					    this has never actually been demonstrated, and seems quite
  The average child learns his or her language (barring	    unlikely, since I would imagine that a native speaker would
language disorders or highly unusual circumstances) quite   be required	to characterize	a Lojban-user's	competence.
rapidly, ambiguity and all.				    Since there	probably will never BE a native	Lojban speaker,
  As to	whether	Lojban is baroque or not, the question is   how	can you	possibly ask one whether XXXX is an allowable
this:  If there	were hypothetical native speakers of	    sentence or	word of	his or her language?  Current Lojban
Lojban,	how complicated	would an abstract characterization  speakers are of no use, because they do not	have such intu-
of their competence be?	 If such an abstract		    itions about the language any more than a fluent second-
characterization were more complicated than a similar	    language speaker of	French (a French speaker whose native
characterization of say, Klammath, then	I would	stand by my language is	say Hindi) would have such intuitions about
assertion.						    French.
  Of course, one might beg the question	and ask	whether
such abstractions are meaningful at all	(as the	Schankians  84.	cowan: (responding to 83.)  This illustrates a
do), but that's	a whole	other ball o' wax (quite	    confusion between natural and constructed languages.  In a
interesting too).					    natural language, the source of competence is the native
							    speaker's intuition.  In a constructed language, during the
80. lee: (responding to	76.)  The discussion of		    construction phase (which Lojban is	still in, though
irregularity might profit from distinguishing types of	    rapidly coming to the end of it), competence is defined by
irregularity:						    the	constructor.  A	grammatical Lojban sentence is what we
							    say	it is, where "what we say" is defined by the baselined
  (1) semantic irregularity - no one-to-one correspondence  vocabulary lists and machine grammar.  The reference for
between	form and meaning, as for example when phonological  syntactic correctness is a parsing program,	and when a Loj-
changes	produce	variations in the form of a stem;	    banist utters something the	program	can't parse, we	say
  (2) morphological irregularity - no uniform way of	    that he has	made an	"error".
deriving related words,	as in the examples of archaic
paradigms;						    85.	dan: (responding to 84.)  Once again, completely
							    arbitrary.	In English, or any other natural language,

							   40


grammaticalness	is also	defined	by what	we can say and	    'standard language'	is, which is distinct from what	we say
understand.  "I	ain't got none"	is perfectly grammatical,   and	understand.  (Of course, the definition	of standard
because	people use and understand it all the time.  Only    language varies from country to country, too.  British
English	teachers and guys like John Simon sit around and    speakers would even	less accept some of Dan's Americanisms,
contemplate (by	their own arbitrary standards) whether or   and	in some	cases might misunderstand them.	(Actually,
not it's okay to split infinitives and use "hopefully"	    there is some variation among 'standard Englishes',	as
right.	The rest of us just do it.			    well, as evidenced by differences in the various published
							    style manuals.))
86. cowan: (responding to 85.)	Correct, and therefore for    In addition, each	language has registers,	in some	of
a natural language like	English, the only way to determine  which certain constructs may be permitted, but which in
the grammar is by {in,intro}spection.  But this	has nothing others are unacceptable.  Try using	"I ain't got none." in
to do with the grammar being in	transformational form, i.e. a journal paper.  In other languages, such as Japanese,
a set of PS rules generating a deep structure with a set of registers are so structured	and formalized as to almost
T rules	generating the surface structure from them.  Such a make for independent languages.  Understanding is not a
grammar	has not	been fully worked out for Lojban, but is    sufficient criteria	for grammaticalness..
clearly	not impossible in principle.  It also happens to be
the case that PS rules are sufficient to generate the whole 91.	dan: (responding to 90.)  This is where	I disagree most
of the language's surface structure all	by themselves	    strongly.  To my mind, grammaticalness. is determined
(probably not true of English),	although the PS-only	    solely by whether a	member of a speech community finds a
version	of the grammar which we	have now baselined does	not given utterance acceptable.	 Members of my speech community
explain	semantic equivalences of different structures.	    will, if they put their biases aside, admit	that "I	ain't
							    got	none" is a perfectly acceptable	sentence.
87. cowan: (continuation of 84.)  But this will	not always
be so.	When the language is fully defined and baselined,   92.	cowan: (responding to 91.)  Northrop Frye tells	a story
it will	be "launched" and the normal processes of	    about going	to a hardware store and	asking for something or
linguistic change will be allowed to operate.  We expect    other, and being told "We haven't got any".	 The speaker
that some grammatical forms, vocabulary	items, etc. will be then glanced at Frye and added, "We	haven't	got none."
"pruned" because nobody	uses them.  They will remain in	the This remark, says Frye, has	what literary critics call
formal language	definition, available to all speakers in    texture:  it means 1) we haven't got any, and 2) you look
the same sort of way that archaic grammar or vocabulary	    to me like a schoolteacher,	and nobody's going to catch me
forms are available to speakers	of natural languages: viz.  talking like one of	those.
if they	take the trouble to look them up.  At that time	it    The "bias" in question is	part of	an English-speaker's
will be	appropriate to consult human speakers (and AI	    competence,	which is not limited to	separating the
programs, if any) to investigate correct linguistic	    intelligible from the unintelligible, but also can separate
behavior a posteriori.					    what kinds of grammatical constructions may	be used	by what
							    speakers in	what situations.  *"Lazy the jumps fox quick
88. dan: (responding to	87.)  Org!  What a mess!  "Correct" dog	brown over the"	is ungrammatical in all	situations.
linguistic behavior?  Lojban will be a linguistic	    *"Me see she" is probably also ungrammatical in all
battlefield with prescriptivists running around	telling	    situations,	although perfectly intelligible.  *"Mama like
people that they can't say such-and-such a sentence,	    pretty spoon" is good toddler-English but unacceptable
because	it can't be parsed by Lojban's computationally	    adult-English.  *"I	ain't got none"	is ungrammatical in
sound grammar (verified	by a genuine computer!).	    some dialects (mine, for example) and entirely grammatical
							    in others.	*"For all x, for some y, such that x is	a man,
89. cowan: (responding to 88.)	Don't be silly.	 Of course  such that y	is a fish, x loves y" is grammatical to	me, but
Lojbanists can do that if they want to,	just as	speakers of many native	speakers would reject it as almost as
English	and other languages can	if they	want to.  Again,    unintelligible as my first example.	 I have	asterisked all
you are	ignoring the difference	between	a language that	is  of these examples as ungrammatical for some	speakers in
born a priori and one that isn't.  After the language is    some situations.
delivered from the womb, anything can and quite	probably
will happen in the way of changes, which will not be	    93.	lojbab:	(continuation of 90.)  And of course, for many
dictated from above.					    nations there are academies	that dictate the standard
							    language for that nation (I	use nations instead of
90. lojbab: (responding	to 85.)	 Not true for English,	    languages since, for example, Brazil has an	academy
really,	nor for	all natural languages.	English	is of	    separate from that of Portugal, although both work together
course not even	a single language in the sense that there   at times.)	English	has no academy,	but this is an
are many dialects spoken around	the world [not all 100%	    exception.	Therefore we end up with individuals setting
mutually understandable].  Many	of these do not	use	    themselves up as a self-appointed 'academy'.
constructs found in the	'standard language', even though
they are obviously understood by their listeners.  But how  94.	dan: (responding to 93.)  Thank	God we don't have such
could we say this if we	didn't have a concept of what the   academies.	Take a look at how much	attention is paid to

							   41


such academies too.  French speakers are constantly being   101. dan: (continuation of 99.)  Besides, many
advised	to avoid English borrowings like "Picque-Nique"	and prescriptivists have used the same arguments against
"Le Weekend" or	"Fair du ski", but they	use them constantly various "slang" forms.  The	argument against "double
and of course they should be allowed to	if they	want to.    negatives" is that they are	"illogical".  The fact that no
							    one	seems to have a	bit of trouble understanding them
95. cowan: (responding to 94.)	Discussions of "allowing    doesn't matter I suppose.
people to do things" are political, not	linguistic.
Linguistics as such is silent on the subject of	what people 102. lojbab: (continuation of 90.)	Some other 'natural
"should" do, permit, or	forbid.				    languages' are indeed defined exactly as Lojban is,	by an a
  "Does	a rock roll down hill because it wants to or	    priori 'committee' that selected the valid forms.  Norse,
because	it has to?"  An	animist	would plump for	the former  Modern Hebrew, and several African languages were defined
reply; most educated Westerners, probably the latter.  But  by some nationalists taking	features from other languages
a pure operational scientist would reply "Neither.  Rocks   used by the	target population (and in the case of Hebrew,
simply do roll down hill, that's all."			    from incomplete knowledge of a dead	language), and
							    arbitrary features sometimes where the several languages
96. lojbab: (continuation of 90.)  This	does not make	    collided.  These all became	living natural languages.  Why
'academies', or	language prescription 'wrong'.	Dan's	    can't Lojban, which	is merely doing	the same on a grander
libertarian view of language is	understandable given his    scale?
American and English language cultural values.	In
addition, there	is a difference	between	the		    103. dan: (responding to 102.)  I would imagine that all of
prescriptive/descriptive debate	from the point of view of   them underwent creolization, which seems to	be nature's way
linguists as opposed to	that of	regular	speakers.  Most	    of smoothing things	out, linguistically.  If Lojban
people,	for example, expect a dictionary to be prescrip-    develops a native speech community,	then it	will
tive, even thought the linguists who write them	disagree.   undoubtedly	do the same, probably in all of	the worst sorts
							    of ways (the moral equivalent of "I	ain't got none"	in
97. dan: (responding to	96.)  I	prefer "anarchistic" to	    Lojban) and	Lojban will be yet another zany, irregular,
"libertarian" for personal reasons  :-)			    ambiguous, beautiful language.  In other words, what's the
							    point?
98. lojbab: (continuation of 90.)  Lojban has a	valid
reason (unambiguity) to	prescribe its standard form.  If    104. cowan:	(responding to 103.)  Well, perhaps you	are
Dan chooses to learn Lojban, and then chooses to deviate    right.  Then we'll have learned something.	And perhaps you
from those standard forms, he may be expanding the	    are	wrong.	And then we'll have learned something else.
language.  Of course, he also may have trouble getting his  That's what	makes this experimental	linguistics.
computer to understand him.  Since ideally Lojban's target
'speaker' population may include computers, failure to	    105. cowan:	(continuation of 87.)  There will also be
express	himself	so that	the computer understands him	    growth in the language: technical terms in all fields will
(unambiguously)	means Dan is speaking ungrammatically even  be borrowed	and Lojbanized as needed; new compounds	will be
by his own definition.					    freely created, and	it is even possible that new
							    grammatical	constructions will be built by usage, although
99. dan: (responding to	98.)  Whaaaat?	The goal of Natural we have really tried to be quite comprehensive in this
Language Understanding should be for the system	to	    domain.
understand human languages, not	for human speakers to alter   I	don't understand what the stuff	about transformational
their speech so	that a computer	can understand it.  Since   grammar vs.	any other kind has to do with this issue.  A
we've already established that Lojban isn't unambiguous,    transformational grammar is	simply certain kind of formal
any Lojban NLP system is already going to be having a hissy description.  Doubtless many natural languages exist of
fit over plastic cats.					    which no transformational grammar has ever been given: do
							    TG [transformational grammar - a linguistics theory]
100. cowan: (responding	to 99.)	 Of course.  But such a	    advocates doubt that such grammars are possible a priori?
Lojban NLP can 1) recognize unambiguously that it has
detected an ambiguity, 2) ask for help,	and 3) get an	    106. dan: (responding to 105.)  TG is a formal description
unambiguous response.  If a Lojban computer sees "slasi	    that requires native speakers to confirm.  Even you	have
mlatu" in its input, it	can ask	"lu slasi mlatu	li'u	    admitted that there	are no native speakers of the language.
ta'unai	pei", literally	"quote plastic cat unquote expand-  How	can there be a transformational	account	of a language
the-metaphor how?" and expect a	response such as "lo mlatu  without native speakers?  Yet Bob LeChevalier told me point
poi ke'a cidja lo slasi", literally "a cat such-that it	    blank that such a transformational account did exist.
eats plastic", or else "lo mlatu poi zo'e zbasu	ke'a lo
slasi",	literally "a cat such-that something makes it from  107. cowan:	(responding to 106.)  I	believe	what Bob meant
plastic".  And other responses are of course also possible. to convey was that an investigation	had been made to see
							    whether the	semantic equivalence of	certain	Lojban
							    constructions could	be represented by T rules which	would

							   42


transform certain syntax trees into other trees	in a	    The	presence of the	trace in (2) between "to" and "want"
meaning-preserving way.	 Indeed, this can be done, although blocks "wanna" contraction.
it has not been	done for every detail of the language.
  Again, I see no difference between TG	formal descriptions 110. rjohnson: (continuation of 108.)  The (now moribund)
and others in this respect.  Every formal description of a  theory of Transformational Grammar,	on the other hand, is a
natural	language requires speakers of that language to	    set	of claims about	linguistic competence, largely
confirm	or disconfirm it, but a	constructed language is	    abandoned by generativists in favor	of GB [this, as	well as
launched with an a priori formal description from which	(or other jargon terms in this paragraph, is a linguistic
from simplified/clarified forms	of which) new speakers	    theory of grammar] and other systems.  Among these claims
learn.							    is the idea	that the basic data are	the grammaticalness.
  Think	of Lojban as being spoken by people who	live so	far judgements of native speakers.  But	this has nothing to do
away that we can't ever	go there to talk with them, but	    with the formal notion of transformations, and can be
they have sent us some of their	Lojban as a Second Language applied in LFG, GPSG, dependency, or just about any	other
materials used for instructing their neighbors in their	    formal framework as	well.  The original poster [cowan],
language.  Magically, these materials have been	translated  quite properly, kept the two levels	separate.
into English.  Some of us now learn this language and begin
to speak it.  Our children hear	us speaking it and either   111. dan: (responding to 110.)  Well you're	probably right
learn it natively (i.e.	as other languages are learned)	or  again.  I'm	not a professional linguist yet	-  only	a
else they don't.  Either way, a	datum for experimental	    Cognitive Science type.
linguistics.  A	board of psychologists then administers
some tests to us and our children to see if either	    112. rjohnson: (continuation of 110, also responding to
population thinks differently (in some sense) from a	    46.)  Of course you	[assume	UG].  You're an	MIT student.
matched	control	group.	Another	datum for experimental	    For	most of	the rest of the	world, however,	the jury is
linguistics.						    still out, and it's	a mistake to assume what you're	trying
  Many generations pass	and the	language undoubtedly	    to prove.
changes.  All this history is forgotten.  A Linguist
(capital L) comes on the scene and decides to study this    113. dan: (responding to 112.)  I'm	not actually, I	just
language called	Lojban;	perhaps	he is himself a	native	    post from here :-(	I don't	want to	misrepresent myself as
speaker.  He records, using whatever linguistic	theory is   an MIT linguist.  I	studied	cognitive science as an
current	at that	time, a	model of the grammar (a	posteriori) undergrad at Hampshire College, with a strong bias towards
of the language	as it is spoken	then.  An archaeologist	    linguistics.  As you can see, I play fast and loose	with
digs up	a copy of the original Lojban textbook,	machine	    some of the	terminology.
grammar, etc., and historical linguistics goes to work	      As for assuming what we're trying	to prove, isn't	that
reconstructing the way the language has	changed.	    the	crux of	this argument?	Most Chomskian linguists assume
  Why not?						    UG,	and most Lojbanists assume Sapir/Whorf.	 In the	words
							    of The Brady Bunch "I guess	we've all learned a valuable
108. rjohnson: (responding to 106.)  Dan, you're conflating lesson".
the formal (mathematical) and the psychological	issues
here.  A transformational grammar is simply a class of	    114. kimba:	(responding to 113.)  The point	was supposed to
formal device for characterizing (generating) sentences.    be,	if you are slamming someone else's assumptions,	the
it has nothing to do with competence.  You could (and do)   least you can do is	write your own in black	ink in a clear
have transformational grammars for characterizing computer  and	legible	hand, rather than saying (effectively) "this is
languages, strings of arbitrary	symbols, etc.		    inconsistent with UG and therefore wrong". As I ought, if I
"Transformational" belongs in the same paradigm	as "phrase  were actually saying anything:-)  I	find neither [UG nor
structure", "finite state", "indexed" and so on; these are  SWH] particularly convincing or illuminating.
classes	of grammars, not empirical theories.
							    115. lojbab: (responding to	106.)  The claim I made	is that
109. dan: (responding to 108.)	I suppose you're right	    John Parks-Clifford, a linguist involved with Loglan since
again, although	perhaps	my studies in Montague Grammar have 1975, told me that he investigated 1970's Loglan using TG
made me	lose sight of psychological vs.	mathematical	    techniques during the 70's and was able to demonstrate to
distinctions :-)  Seriously though, one	does rely on	    his	own satisfaction that all features of Loglan were
grammaticalness. judgements when trying	to determine if	a   amenable to	TG analysis, and that he found no 'unusual'
certain	movement is viable: for	example	in the case of	    transforms.	 More recently,	a student in Cleveland has been
"wanna"	contraction:					    attempting to develop a more formal	TG description of the
							    language.  This will undoubtedly take a while, but he re-
  1  a.	Which movie(t) do you want to see? (t)		    ported to me earlier this year that	not only had he	found
     b.	Which movie do you wanna see?			    nothing unusual, he	had identified some elegant features of
  2  a.	Which team(t) do you want (t) to win?		    the	language using TG techniques.  The features he reported
     b.	*Which team do you wanna win?			    are	indeed consistent with the language definition,	and in-
							    cluded aspects that	the student had	not been taught	(i.e.

							   43


that we	had not	put into any published documents that the   goes with them (there is an	entire set of paralinguistic
student	had received.					    grunts for expressing emotions), and so on.

116. dan (conclusion of	1., from 63.):	Ultimately, the	    7. daj: (responding	to 6.)	Since every known language (as
enterprise of Lojban is	at best	an intellectual	puzzle,	and far	as I know) has a set of	required categories, they must
perhaps	on this	level, it is interesting.  To learn a	    fulfill some function.  Again, real	speakers would make the
"language" (perhaps "code" would be better) like Lojban,    categories compulsory and create something different from
based on principles of logic can be seen as the	equivalent  the	original design.
of a Pig-Latin for intellectuals and engineers.
							    8. cowan: (responding to 7.)  Maybe, maybe not.  Since the
							    non-required categories are	expressed by marked forms
		 ________________________		    (using the particles), sentences that don't	express
	       Subject:	Lojban:	is it naive?		    categories are always possible.  Again, they might come to
							    seem archaic or childish, but that's a second-order	effect.
  Participants:						    When a 2-year-old says "Dog!" we usually consider that a
[email protected] (John Cowan)			    bit	deviant, but the Lojban	literal	translation "gerku" is
[email protected] (David A.	Johns)			    fully grammatical Lojban - a predicate with	all arguments
							    elliptically omitted.
1. [The	following exchange between cowan and daj began with
a one-liner from daj that Lojban was "naive".  cowan wrote  9. daj: (continuation of 7.)  Another point.  A few	weeks
back privately to ask "Why do you say that?"]		    ago	you posted a list of Lojban pronouns.  It struck me
							    then that this paradigm was	probably too rich for human
2. daj:	 Well, the three things	that jump out at me right   language.  This is just a gut feeling, but it seems	to me
away are:  (1) You can't design	a culture-free language.    that in real languages the number of elements in a con-
Simply the choice of categories	to represent in	the	    trastive set is pretty severely limited.
language (tense, aspect, definite- indefinite, etc.) are
culture-bound.	In addition, there's a lot of talk in that  10.	cowan: (responding to 9.)  Depends on what you mean by
description about using	metaphor to extend the bare bones   "contrastive".  The	43 Lojban pronouns are indeed
of the language.  Can there be anything	more culture-bound  contrastive	in the sense of	being interchangeable in the
than metaphor (not the mechanism, but the choices of	    grammar, but they aren't semantically interchangeable.
images)?						    They fall into several categories:	personal, bound-vari-
							    able, free-variable, question, relativized argument,
3. cowan: (responding to 2.)  Absolutely correct.  Lojban   reflexive, demonstrative, pro-utterance, pro-argument, and
is not a culture-free language;	every language creates its  indefinite.	 Within	each category there are	only a few
own culture if the SWH is correct, and we assume it correct pronouns (or "anaphora" more technically - "ba'ivla" in
(its falsity is	the null hypothesis) for purposes of the    Lojban).  Grammatically, "do" and "dei" are
Lojban experiment.  Assuming SWH, then lei lojbo 'the mass  interchangeable, but no one	will confuse "you" (the
of those pertaining to Lojban' will create their own	    listener) with "this utterance I am	now uttering"!
culture, with its own metaphors	and characteristic idioms.
							    11.	daj: (continuation of 7., from 9.)  I can see that it
4. daj:	(responding to 3.)  Then what's	the point of the    would be possible in some cases to have people speaking
language?  All you would end up	with is	a bunch	of	    different dialects of the same language, where each	dialect
creolized Lojban daughter languages, wouldn't you?	    over-specified some	categories from	the point of view of
							    other dialects.  After all,	we don't really	have much
5. cowan: (responding to 4.)  We hope not.  Of course in    trouble understanding Chinese speakers of English who
the very long term that	can happen to any language:  Latin  simply eliminate the verb tense system and replace it with
split into lots	of daughters, some of which are	more or	    adverbs.  But I don't think	this would work	with the
less heavily influenced	by other languages (Rumanian being  pronouns, since a listener wouldn't	know what any given
the prime example).  The idea is that Lojban ways of	    pronoun meant without knowing the entire set.
thought	(assuming there	are such things) will influence	the
creation of Lojbanic culture.				    12.	cowan: (responding to 11.)  Correct.  On the other
							    hand, it may be that lots of the ba'ivla don't come	up
6. cowan: (continuation	of 3.)	Lojban deals with the	    much.  For example "da'e" meaning "a far future utterance"
category problem (which	we refer to as the "metaphysical    probably won't be used very	often, and someone who doesn't
assumptions" problem) by minimizing required categories.    understand it or even recognize it may still be quite a
Tense, aspect, and definiteness	are optional categories	of  fluent speaker.  One can speak English fluently without
discourse in the language, but can be represented when	    knowing "thou", for	example, although certainly it is a
needed.	 We can	also represent things like the observa-	    personal pronoun contrasting with "I" and "you" and	the
tional status of assertions, the emotional attitude which   rest.  The occasions for its use (in Modern	English) just
							    aren't that	common.

							   44


							    Even with all kinds	of contrastive stress and artificial
13. daj: (continuation of 2.)  (2) If you're going to	    intonation breaks we can't read even slightly complicated
design a language that people are actually going to speak,  math formulas so that they can be written down correctly.
you're going to	have to	deal with whatever it is that leads
human languages	to be the way they are.	 One obvious	    18.	cowan: (responding to 17.)  Lojban has lots of kinds of
universal of real language is a	floating equilibrium	    parentheses: "ke" and "ke'e" for Boolean connective
between	ambiguity and redundancy.  If you want to design a  groupings, "vei" and "ve'o"	for strictly
language without ambiguity, you'll have	to figure out what  numerical/mathematical parentheses,	"to" and "toi" for
role ambiguity plays and compensate for	the loss.  There    discursive parentheses (like these).  These	can be stacked
are many other characteristics like this, such as why	    up as required.  Of	course,	if things get too complicated
semantically external predicates like negation and tense    people may not be able to understand what is said, but En-
tend to	become reduced and attached to internal	pieces of a glish has that problem as well.  "The cheese that the mouse
sentence, etc.						    that the man that the woman	married	chased ate rotted" is
							    grammatical, but not intelligible due to stack overflow in
14. cowan: (responding to 13.)	Lojban is not free of	    the	listener.  But the words do exist as a regular part of
ambiguity, only	of phonological	and syntactic ambiguity.    the	language: if the worst comes to	the worst, the listener
							    could write	down what is said verbatim, pass it through a
15. daj: (responding to	2.)  First phonological	ambiguity.  machine parser, and	figure out exactly what	is bracketed
In your	original posting you gave examples which seemed	to  with what.	This ability could be quite useful for things
indicate that Lojban words were	polysyllabic, with	    like drafting regulations, which are notoriously ridden
syllable-initial stress.  I assume that	your claim that	    with unintentional ambiguity:  having a parser looking over
analysis of the	input stream into words	was unambiguous	has your shoulder as you write such a thing would help you in
to depend on that stress placement - in	other words, a word seeing ways	in which your listener/reader could get
begins where a stress occurs and includes all following	    confused, and clarifying them.
unstressed syllables.  But in natural languages, there are
unstressed words - clitics - plus other	uses of	stress for  19.	daj: (continuation from	15., from 17.)	Also, once you
phrase boundary	identification,	discourse function, etc.    allow idiomatization into the language, you're going to
How are	you going to prevent phonological ambiguity from    have syntactic reanalysis, which will produce syntactic
creeping into Lojban?					    ambiguity.	For instance, every language has some way of
							    embedding one sentence inside another, and as far as I
16. cowan: (responding to 15.)	I must have misled you.	    know, they all have	ways of	reducing the information in the
Lojban stress is as follows:  stress on	content	words	    embedded sentence.	For instance, take a structure like (I
("brivla") is penultimate.  All	root brivla are	two-	    like (I swim)), which can be realized as either "I like
syllabled, so stress appears to	be initial.		    swimming" or "I like to swim."  It's pretty	clear that the
  Structure words ("cmavo") are	one or two syllables and    action indicated by	"swim" is subordinate to the main verb
may be stressed	freely.	 A structure word with final stress "like."  On	the other hand,	I don't	think anyone would
immediately followed by	a brivla must have a separating	    analyze "I am swimming" as (I am (I	swim)).	Here we	think
pause (which can be a full pause or just a glottal stop).   of "am" as being a marker on the main verb,	so that	the
Thus in	"le bridi", "bridi" has	penultimate stress; if "le" structure is [something like] (I (am swim)).  But both
is unstressed it can be	proclitic [sounded together with    structures are realized in actual speech as	V-V sequences,
the following word], whereas if	it is stressed a pause is   and	there are many such sequences that are hard to
required to forbid the reading "lebri di".		    classify: "am to," "am going to," "am supposed to,"	etc.
  Names	have free stress, which	must be	indicated by	    This sort of reanalysis is extremely common	and probably
capitalization in writing when it is not penultimate.	    unavoidable	in any real language.
Names are always followed by pause, and	must be	preceded by
either pause or	one of the cmavo "la", "lai", "la'i", or    20.	cowan: (responding to 19.)  I'm	not sure how to	comment
"doi" (the first three are articles, the last a	vocative    on this.  However, I guess the best	point I	can make is
marker).  These	same cmavo may not be embedded in names, so that in Lojban, the	"surface structure" is quite close to
"*doil"	for "Doyle" is not a valid Lojban name;	it would    the	"deep structure".  We simply do	not have things	like
have to	be "do'il", roughly "Dough-heel". (The Lojban '	    embedding and tense	marking	being realized with the	same
character represents IPA [h], or more accurately a	    forms.
voiceless vowel	glide.)					      (I like (I swim))	comes out "mi nelci le nu mi limna"
							    which is "I	like the event-of I swim".  (I (am swim)) comes
17. daj: (continuation of 15.)	And then there's syntactic  out	"mi ca limna" which is "I now swim".  The first	form
ambiguity.  Math/logic notation	has an extremely powerful   could be collapsed into "mi	limna nelci" = "I swimly like",
device for preventing ambiguity	- parentheses.	With	    which is one of the	forms which is explicitly marked as
parentheses you	can resolve "old men and women"	into either semantically ambiguous:  the exact way in which the	liking
"((old men) and	(women))" or "(old (men	and women))."  It's is a kind of swimming is not indicated.  This process of
hard to	imagine	anything like this in natural language that making a "tanru" (Lojban for "open compound") is a kind of
could operate at more than one or two levels of	embedding.  Lojban transformation, and the current grammar does	not ex-

							   45


press it - it is a grammar of surface structure	alone, but  sense of having exactly the	same five places, although
a surface structure that is more like the deep structure of "benji" (A transfers B to C	from D via E) and "muvdu" (A
other languages.  This is the kind of embedding	we call	    moves B from C to D	via E) come close - the	difference is
"abstraction": there are also other embeddings,	involving   that "muvdu" and "klama" involve physical objects, whereas
description, relativization, metalinguistic comments, etc.  "benji" doesn't necessarily.  But all Lojban predicates
							    with the same number of places contrast in that they are
21. cowan: (continuation of 14.)  Metaphors (which, as you  freely substitutable, although perhaps nonsense-producing.
say, are fundamental - they are	Mandarin-type metaphors	and
really correspond more to nominal compounds in English)	are 26.	cowan: (continuation of	14., from 21.)	Negation,
semantically ambiguous,	and there is also ambiguity in	    tense, etc.	can be expressed either	externally through the
names and through the extensive	use of ellipsis	and	    semantics or internally through the	grammar.  Negation in
defaults:  the full translation	of a simple utterance like  particular has gotten a great deal of attention:  we split
mi klama is 'I/we go to	somewhere, from	somewhere, via some it into contradictory negation (with na or naku), contrary/
route, by some means'.					    polar/scalar negation (with	a variety of particles for
							    simple contrary, polar opposite, and "scale	neutral"), and
22. daj: (responding to	21.)  But as soon as you allow	    metalinguistic negation (with na'i).
these metaphors, you've	compromised universal
comprehensibility, which I assume is one purpose of the	    27.	daj: (responding to 26.)  Again, I think the evidence
language.  Do you think	a Mongol tribesman would understand from natural language suggests that	people won't tolerate
"heart ache," "dog days," etc.,	or indeed would	he have	any very much paradigmatic indeterminacy.  They	will boil down
way of knowing that "back stabber" wasn't to be	taken	    all	these choices to a few that seem particularly important
literally?						    to them.

23. cowan: (responding to 22.)	There is a subtle point	    28.	daj: (continuation of 2., from 13.)  (3) You can't
here.  There is	a marker for "figurative speech" which	    design a language "not based on any	existing languages."
would be used on "back stabber"	and would signal "There	is  You	might be able to choose	totally	arbitrary vocabulary,
a culturally dependent construction here!"  The	intent is   since vocabulary IS	arbitrary, but interestingly enough,
not that everything is instantly and perfectly comprehensi- Lojban doesn't do that (words are based on U. N. languages
ble to someone who knows only the root words, but rather    as I remember).  But in syntax the choices are limited, and
that non-root words are	built up creatively from the roots. Lojban seems to opt	for a word-order language rather than a
Thus "heart pain" would	refer to the literal heart and	    morphology language	like Russian.  Lojban is thereby biased
literal	pain; what would be ambiguous would be the exact    toward languages that use word order to indicate structural
connection between these two.  Is the pain in the heart,    relationships.
because	of the heart, or what?	But "heart pain" would not
be a valid tanru for "emotional	pain", absent the	    29.	cowan: (responding to 28.)  You	remember correctly.
figurative speech marker.  It is "malglico" (#*$@ English). The	relevant languages are Mandarin, English, Russian,
							    Hindi, Spanish, and	Arabic,	weighted according to the
24. daj: (continuation of 22.)	In natural language words   numbers of speakers, and using a phoneme-matching algorithm
exist in paradigmatic sets: "No	contrast, no content."	The to assign words with the highest figures of	merit relative
meaning	of "mi klama" would be determined in any single	    to the six languages.  This	mechanism is a "marketing
dialect	by the categories that had become compulsory in	    device" to make the	vocabulary easier to learn for speakers
that dialect.  In other	words, "I go" does not mean the	    of any of those languages, especially Mandarin and English.
same thing as German "ich gehe," because in English it	      Word order plays a fairly	limited	role in	determining
contrasts with "I am going," while in German there is no    meaning: it	determines which arguments of predicates are
such tense.						    which, but can be overridden.  Lojban is really a particle
							    language: almost everything	about the grammar is determined
25. cowan: (responding to 24.)	Each root word in Lojban    by which particles are used	and where.
expresses an N-place predicate,	and its	meaning	is defined
by the significance of the N places.  Thus "klama" is a	5-  30.	daj: (responding to 29.)  My mistake.  But how do you
place predicate	meaning	"A goes	to B from C via	route D	by  come up with a culture-free	list of	particles?
means E".  The Lojban design maintains that these five
places are an essential	part of	the meaning of "klama",	and 31.	cowan: (responding to 30.)  Again, we can't exactly.
that any state of affairs not involving	an agent, a	    We attempt to be superinclusive, as	I said above.  The list
destination, an	origin,	a route, and a means is	not validly of particles is large (~550) and if	anybody	comes up with a
captured by the	word "klama".  Most roots have 1, 2, or	3   construct which cannot be handled by existing ones,	we add
places,	and 5 is the maximum.  Additional places (such as   one.  Hopefully this process is now	complete.  The last few
the time, the location,	the purpose, etc.) can be expressed things to come in included the observationals (which say
as well	by an extensible set of	tags, but they are not	    "how the speaker knows", from Amerind languages), scalar
considered essential to	meaning.  In the case of "klama"    negation, and the tense system, which is quite
there is no word which precisely "contrasts" with it in	the comprehensive (it covers space location and	aspect as well

							   46


as time).  A few more may still	need to	be added to cover   restriction, but they should be able to understand them
the needs of mathematics.				    passively if they are fluent in the	language.

32. daj: (continuation of 2., from 28.)	 I could go on.	    39.	cowan: (responding to 32.)  Coordination and
One obvious area is how	Lojban indicates discourse	    subordination are both fully supported.  Lojban features
functions like old and new information components of a	    redundant structures:  there are often many	ways to	say
sentence (or clause), whether it is iconic in tense	    "the same thing" semantically.  Lojban's specified grammar
sequences, whether it prefers coordination or		    is not a transformational one, but that is not to say that
subordination, etc., etc.  All these factors are going to   a transformational grammar cannot exist or is trivial.
make it	look like particular languages.	 All of	them are    Lojban has a "deep structure" even though we didn't	design
going to have to be specified if the language isn't going   it to!  Usage will decide, for example, whether the
to break up into dialects based	on the way speakers of	    subordinating or coordinating versions of "A is true
other languages	implement unspecified features in their	own because B is true" will become dominant.
speech.
							    40.	daj: (responding to 39.)  But won't different versions
33. cowan: (responding to 32.)	Discourse functions are	    become dominant in different areas?	 And if	so, won't that
handled	by a large set of discursives, each of which has a  defeat the purpose of Lojban?
polar opposite:	 things	like specifically/generally,
hypothetically/actually, metaphorically/explicitly, etc.    41.	cowan: (responding to 40.)  Remember that the purposes
							    of Lojban are threefold:  1) experimental investigation of
34. daj: (responding to	33.)  These seem more pragmatic	    the	SWH; 2)	communications with computers; 3) international
than discourse,	but I admit the	boundaries are fuzzy, and I communication.  Purposes 2)	and 3) are effective if
may be using non-standard divisions.  What I had in mind    everybody can understand every construct (or almost	every
was the	universally marked distinction between information  construct) even if they do not often use them in their own
that's already part of the conversation	and information	    dialect.  Purpose 1) probably cannot be satisfied until
being introduced for the first time (in	this conversation). some people	begin to speak Lojban as native	bilinguals.
English	does it	with articles (the/a) and intonation,	    There are native Esperanto speakers, whose parents had no
Russian	and Chinese do it with word order, Japanese does it other common language.
with particles,	etc., etc.				      Learning Lojban involves finding out about a rich	set of
							    structural resources.  Some	of these will go over
35. cowan: (responding to 34.)	The nearest Lojban	    automatically because they match your own language.	 Some
equivalent to the "the/a" distinction is the "le/lo"	    will seem strange because they conflict with your language,
distinction.  "le finpe" means "the fish, the thing(s) I    and	you will have trouble with them, but you will use them
describe as (a)	fish".	It may be a whale, or a	mermaid, or anyway because they	are the	easiest, shortest ways of
indeed my cat Freddy:  as long as the listener understands  saying what	you mean in Lojban.  The simple, unmarked forms
what is	meant, "le finpe" is correct; "le" is non-veridi-   of Lojban are the ones least like natural languages: the
cal.							    predicate grammar, the contradictory negation, and the
  "Lo finpe" on	the other hand means "fish, a fish, some    logical (Boolean) connectives.  The	things that are	"in
fish, the thing(s) that	really is-a (are) fish".  "Lo" is   there to emulate natural languages"	are more heavily marked
veridical and makes a claim; sentences containing "lo" are  and	so more	difficult to exploit.
valid only if the thing	is as described	(they may be vacu-    The best example of this that comes to mind is the form
ously true otherwise, but probably a human listener would   of embedded	sentence called	abstraction:  the (I like (I
consider them ill-formed semantically).			    swim)) above.  This	is unnatural in	English, especially in
							    complex constructions, but is the most painless in Lojban:
36. cowan: (responding to 32.)	I don't	understand "iconic  you	wrap an	entire predication into	"nu"/"kei" brackets
in tense sequences."  Could you	explain	further?	    (you can omit the "kei" if no ambiguity results) and the
							    result is suitable as an argument for another predication.
37. daj: (responding to	36.)  In many languages	(Chinese is So you find	yourself saying	the Lojban for "I like the
one, I believe)	you can	say "After I went home I went to    event of I swim" even though that is not at	all natural in
bed" or	"I went	home before I went to bed," but	you can't   English, because Lojban makes it easy.  You	can ellipsize
say "Before I went to bed I went home" or "I went to bed    it to "mi nelci le nu limna", omitting the second "I" and
after I	went home."  Clause sequence has to match time se-  hoping the listener	will reconstruct it correctly if you
quence.	 I think it's even impossible in Chinese to say	    want, but you know that this is ambiguous (or more
"I'm staying home because I've got a cold," since the	    accurately,	vague) because of the omitted place in the
presupposed cause has to precede the consequent.  Many	    embedded predication.  The listener	is also	aware of this
other languages, of course, have no such restriction.	    vagueness, and can ask "ma limna" (Who swims?) to get
							    clarification.
38. cowan: (responding to 37.)	Lojban has no such
restriction.  Of course, Chinese-native	Lojbanists might be 42.	cowan: (responding to 32.)  [Dialectization] is
unlikely to construct Lojban sentences which violate this   certainly a	known problem.	All of us speak	more or	less

							   47


pidginized versions of Lojban at best:	we tend	to exploit  may	be beyond human	understanding (as is the case in
features that have parallels in	English	or our own	    English also).
languages.  But	the fact that the language is not very
"large"	means that it is possible to exploit the other re-  47.	cowan: (continuation of	42.)  In translating a story
sources	after a	modest amount of learning and so prevent    involving dialogue,	for example, I found it	necessary to
Lojban from becoming an	English-based code.  The Lojban	    make frequent use of the observational particles of	the
metaphor malglico  'that #*%^ English' is applied to the    language, which certainly had no counterpart in the	English
tendency to copy English-based constructions into Lojban.   version.  These mean things	like 'I	hear', 'I observe', 'I
							    deduce', 'I	know by	cultural means', etc. Likewise,	in
43. daj: (responding to	42.)  As long as it remains a	    delivering the lines realistically,	it was necessary to
pidgin language, there should be no problem.  But your	    supply paralinguistic attitudinal indicators, as Lojban
original posting indicated that	speakers should	be able	to  makes no use of tones of voice (part of its	phonological
extend the language on their own.  They	can extend the	    unambiguity) that an English-speaker would surely use.
vocabulary by combining	the 1300 (?) basic words, and they
can extend the expressive power	of the language	by	    48.	daj: (responding to 47.)  Why?	Have these categories
improvising on the rather unspecialized	grammatical	    become compulsory in your dialect?	:)
structure.  But	here is	where I	think things will
necessarily go awry.  Speakers who extend Lojban on their
own will do it in accordance with their	own already
established linguistic habits, and they	will categorize
their vocabulary according to their semantic habits (this
is only	a weak SWH, by the way).  To the extent	that Lojban
becomes	a real vehicle for communication, it will take on
the characteristics of existing	natural	languages.  It may
be fun to see to what extent this can be resisted, but I
really think it's hopeless to think that it can	be
prevented altogether.

44. cowan: (responding to 43.)	I agree	about "prevented
altogether".  We do try	to resist, though, sometimes by
bending	over backwards to avoid	"malglico".  Consider the
following translation of Simonides' epigram at Thermopylae:
"ko cusku fi le	me la lakedaimon. doi klama do'u fe le nu
mi nu tinbe le ri flalu	kei morsi".  Literally this is:
"(Imperative!) You express to what-I-describe-as pertaining
to Lakedaimon, O comer/goer, the event-of (we are (the
event-of (something) obeys the laws of the-last-mentioned)
kind-of	dead)."
  I think you will admit that this slop	is not English,	and
that the grammar underlying this Lojban	utterance is sui
generis	and not	something derived from English in the
manner of a code.  (I know no Greek, by	the way, so my
translation is from English not	from Greek.)

45. daj: (continuation of 43.)	The alternative, of course,
would be to extend the language	by design.  But	this would
produce	either a language that looked like some	other human
language (and therefore	unlike most human languages) or	a
"PL/1" language, so rich in devices that subsets would
develop, fragmenting the language into dialects.

46. cowan: (responding to 45.)	Indeed,	Lojban is
comparable to PL/I or Ada in complexity.  But its scope	is
much larger than any programming language's.  If English
were to	be put in purely phrase-structure form,	the result
would be incomprehensibly large	(to say	nothing	of
desperately ambiguous).	 I don't believe that the entire
repertoire of Lojban devices is	beyond human learning,
although some of the recursive complexities made possible

							   48


49. cowan: (responding to 48.)	Of course not!	But to make
the meaning of the story clear to those	who didn't belong     Participants:
to my culture, the observationals were indispensable.  We   [email protected] (Dan Parmenter)
know that when somebody	says "It must be the wind" in	    [email protected] (John Cowan)
reference to a sound, this is a	conclusion from	incomplete  [email protected] (Rod Johnson)
evidence: but a	Mongol tribesman might not.  Hence the	    [email protected] (David M Tate)
observational helps to make the	cross-cultural meaning	    [email protected] (Bob LeChevalier)
clear.	For communication among, say, my own family (if
they spoke Lojban), I would probably not need such a thing. 1. dan:  S/W is pretty much	disavowed by the linguistic
							    orthodoxy in this country.	I'm told that anthropologists
50. daj: (continuation of 2., from 28.)	 Frankly, I don't   are	still interested in it,	but I don't know enough	about
think the designers of Lojban knew much	about language.	    anthropology to say.

51. cowan: (responding to 50.)	Guilty,	especially in the   2. rjohnson: (responding to	1.)  There is no linguistic
beginning.  But	we've learned a	lot, even if we	take a non- orthodoxy in this country (and why do national boundaries
standard slant on some things.	Lojban/Loglan has a	    enter into this question anyway?  There is certainly no
"historical" dimension as well,	even if	the history is only linguistic orthodoxy in the	world).	 Linguists are a pretty
some 35	years old, and there are things	in the language	    fractious bunch.  There may	be a generative	orthodoxy
that probably would be removed now or changed if an a	    (though I doubt it), but they don't	speak for me.
priori redesign	were done.
  Lojban is not	designed to be a "universal notation", just 3. dan: (responding	to 2.)	When was the last time you saw
a language.  Although it shares	many features with other    an article in any of the journals on Sapir-Whorf?
languages, it is clearly not a dialect or a code or a
jargon.	 It has	its own	feature	set and	its own		    4. rjohnson: (responding to	3.)  Well, I suppose it	depends
characteristic way of exploiting the set: the set is large, on which journals you look at.  I've seen articles fairly
but the	language is still small	because	of its high degree  recently that are "Whorfian" in some sense here and	there.
of regularity.						    It's certainly not a major topic in	the field at present,
  Whether it is	possible to internalize	the language, in    but	there are any number of	reasons	that could be, includ-
the sense of gaining Chomsky-competence, is still an open   ing:
issue.	I believe it is	possible: I am beginning to think     -	it's held to be	clearly	true;
in the language's terms	now, and so are	several	other ad-     -	it's held to be	clearly	false;
vanced students; some of the paralinguistics are also	      -	other ideas are	exciting people	nowadays;
becoming internalized.					      -	people are stumped as to how to	approach it.
							    My guess is	that it's all of the above, variously.
52. daj: (responding to	51.)  I	have to	apologize for my
snotty attitude	there.	You've obviously done more homework 5. dan: (continuation of 3.)  The introductory textbooks on
than I thought at first.				    linguistics	that I've looked at seem to cover the topic [of
  I still can't	help thinking, though, that you're	    S/W] briefly, if at	all, and then as a discredited
underestimating	the incredible complexity of human	    hypothesis.
language, both in its use and in its potential for change.
I doubt	that you will be able to create	a language free	of  6. rjohnson: (responding to	5.)  In	the totally
irregularity, ambiguity, etc.  On the other hand, you may   unscientific sample	of textbooks on	my desk, Lyons has a
have a really interesting semi-laboratory experiment in	the fairly sympathetic discussion of it; Finegan and Besnier
process	of creolization, and that would	make the whole	    have only a	page or	so, mostly sympathetic but critical;
thing worthwhile in itself.				    Eysenck's cognitive	psych textbook gives it	an extended but
							    guarded treatment; Bolinger	gives it a mild	thumbs down
53. cowan: (responding to 52.)	Well, new purposes always   ("exaggerated") but	is essentially in sympathy with	some
help.  These letters are being passed to the president of   form of the	idea; and Akmajian et al. don't	mention	it
the Logical Language Group, by the way - I hope	you don't   anywhere I can find.  Everyone that	mentions it finds it
mind - for comments.					    attractive but in need of revision or special
							    understanding.  Finegan and	Besnier, for instance, say:
54. daj: (responding to	53.)  I'll try to watch	more and    "Today few scholars	take the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis	lit-
snarl less.  Thanks for	the education.			    erally.  Many linguists take the position that language may
							    have some influence	on thought but thought may also
55. cowan: (responding to 54.)	je'e .uicai ("Roger.	    influence the structure of language" etc.  If we strip away
Happy!!!)").						    the	mealymouthedness (which	I've spared you	most of), they
							    seem to be saying that the influence goes both ways, a
							    position that neither Sapir	nor Whorf would	have any
		 ________________________		    objection to.
	     Subject:  Why use Lojban for S/W?

							   49


7. dan:	(continuation of 3., from 5.)  This doesn't	    12.	dan: (responding to 9.,	from 10.)  I never said
disprove anything, but it certainly seems to indicate a	    anything about "voting" on anything.
lack of	interest in the	subject	currently.  I didn't mean
to imply that all linguists were of one	mind, but on this   13.	rjohnson: (responding to 12.)  But isn't that what
topic, there seems to be a pretty general agreement, in	    orthodoxy amounts to?  Chomsky was took a few highly
what I've read.						    unorthodox positions once, and was roundly "outvoted" by
							    the	field.	That changed.  It's arguments that decide these
8. rjohnson: (responding to 7.)	 I'll agree there's not	a   things, and	evidence (and funding, and ...), not which way
whole lot of interest among the	people who currently	    the	wind is	blowing	in any given decade.  Orthodoxy	is
dominate the field.  This is not to say	that those people   fickle.  20	years ago everyone was into intrinsic rule
are committed to a position on either side of the issue	-   ordering, squishes and (trans)derivational constraints.  No
it's just not relevant to their	work.  "Exotic"	languages   one	talks about them now - but the underlying problems are
are no longer the center of interest that they were in the  still there	waiting	to be explored.	 Likewise the complex
heyday of Sapir	and Whorf.  That doesn't mean the issue	is  of problems	and questions people lump together as "the
resolved, though.					    Sapir-Whorf	hypothesis".

9. rjohnson: (continuation of 2.)  No matter how you try to 14.	dan: (responding to 9.,	from 12.)  If I'm missing
slant the issue, the status of the Sapir-Whorf "hypothesis" something, please let me know, rather than telling me I
is still very unclear.	(Personally, I don't think it's	    don't know what I'm	talking	about.	As it happens, I have
even a hypothesis; it's	a problematic, it's a topos, it's   tried to learn about s/w and have considered the issue at
an ideological litmus test.)  But in any event,	though	    great length.  I admit, that in the	course of this thread,
there may be unanimity on this point in	some linguistics    I've made some mistakes, but does that qualify me as an
departments dominated by Chomskyans, for the rest of us	    ignorant boob?  I don't think so.
(and that's most of us)	the debate is still alive.  (No
anti-Chomsky animus expressed or implied.)		    15.	rjohnson: (responding to 14.)  Dan, I thought you
  You don't know enough	about linguistics [either].	    didn't take	this personally!  Of course you're not an
Anyway,	the question of	orthodoxy is beside the	point.	    ignorant boob, not at all.
This is	not something you vote over.  There have been some    Still, it	would be a lot of fun to handle	this this way:
suggestive studies on both sides; there	has been nothing
conclusive, and	I see little indication	that most of the    >I admit, that in the course of this thread, I've made some
partisans on both sides	have really gotten to terms with    mistakes, but does that qualify me as an ignorant boob?
what the debate	is all about.				       Sorry - the weak	must die.     :)

10. dan: (responding to	9.)  I'm calling it as I've seen    16.	dan: (responding to 9.,	from 12.)  In several cases,
it.  When I was	hyped up on Sapir-Whorf	myself a few years  I've misunderstood what people were	saying,	and been
ago, I went through any	number of texts	looking	for	    misunderstood in kind.  This happens, but I	like to	think
information on it and came to the conclusion that most	    that I'm relatively	informed about linguistics, based on my
linguists that I read seem to disavow it.  I guess I read   education and my intent to pursue graduate studies in the
the wrong books.  Even the anti-Chomsky	linguists didn't    field.
seem to	have much to say on the	matter.
									     ________________________
11. rjohnson: (responding to 10.)  This	isn't some kind	of	     [... continuing on	the same topic later]
insult:	 you don't know	enough about linguistics to say.
There are several reasons for this:			    17.	dan:  [SWH] is something I'm rather interested in (as a
  1. No	one does.  The field is	too big	and too		    curiosity, I used to be utterly convinced by it too), and
heterogeneous, the social networks too fractured, to be	    I'm	actually glad the Lojbanists have dredged it up	for
able to	gauge consensus	adequately.			    serious discussion again.  I question their	methods	though,
  2. As	you just told us, you're not a trained linguist	    why	not do psychological tests on existing languages,
(yet).	Pronouncements about what's orthodox are hazardous  rather than	trying to come up with a whole new one?
enough for the most highly trained finger-licker (if you    Presumably,	if S/W is confirmed by the Lojban project, no
follow the imagery); one's words have a	way of coming back  one	would assume that it is	only true for Lojban itself.
and biting one on the ass here.				    This goes back to my feeling that Lojban is	at best, an
  3. "... but I	don't know enough about	anthropology to	    intellectual puzzle.  If you can learn it and gain some
say."  But anthropology, and psycholinguistics,	and	    degree of fluency in it, well that's fine for some people.
rhetoric, and such areas, are where a lot of the SW work    Not	for me.
goes on	nowadays.  These people	aren't disqualified from
contributing simply because they don't hold down lines in   18.	dtate: (responding to 17.)  Hey, we agree!  Weird...
the budget of a	linguistics department.			      S/W is about natural languages, of which we have lots.
							    Presumably,	if S/W is true,	then it	is true	now, for the
							    languages currently	being used.  The only problem might be

							   50


if all current natural languages are sufficiently similar   actual hypothesis was; i.e.	how to formulate it, the
in their world-views that S/W doesn't kick in.	If this	is  racial/political issue, attacks on Whorf's scholarly
true, then it would constitute (IMHO) a	practical	    credentials, and the rise of Chomsky's theories which were
refutation of S/W, since S/W was originally motivated by    orthogonal to S/W and soon attracted all the money).
observation of the divergence among current natural	      The tests	were not conclusive, though.  One major	problem
languages.  There is theoretical interest in knowing if	a   is that with natural languages, you	can't ever be sure that
constructed language like Lojban has a detectable effect on hidden cultural features might obscure the results.	 There
thought	patterns, but not nearly as strong as the interest  are	also more variables to control with natural language
in whether there is a difference between (say) Korean and   speakers.  (This is	NOT the	same as	saying natural
Japanese thought patterns, or German vs. French, or Sioux   languages are 'too similar'; merely	that we	don't know how
vs. Hopi.						    to test for	the differences.)
  I'd go even farther, though, and question what it is that   How does Lojban improve on this?	Being better defined as
we hope	to learn using Lojban that we couldn't learn better a language than any	natural	language allows	better
(and more easily) using	natural	languages.  There's hardly  monitoring of actual usage vs. some	theoretical norm.
any chance of Lojban ever becoming a widespread	native	    Having a structure drastically different from any natural
tongue,	so any conclusions we get about	people whose	    language should lead to a much larger S/W effect than
primary	language is Lojban will	include	the strong bias	of  between two	natural	languages.  Furthermore, if a S/W
self-selection for Lojban proficiency by the subject or	    effect is found, its nature	and manifestation will help ex-
some close relative of the subject...			    perimental design for a new	test based on natural
							    languages, when we better understand what we're looking
19. cowan: (responding to 18.)	[We hope to learn] the same for.  Being	culture-free (at least initially) makes	it much
kinds of things	we learn about the mechanics of	falling	    easier to filter out cultural effects.  Being different
bodies by rolling them down inclined planes rather than	    from all language families allows better cross-cultural
dropping them from the Leaning Tower of	Pisa.		    studies.  Because there are	several	identifiable areas of
							    structural difference, there is a greater likelihood of
  "JCB's [the founder of Loglan] plan was to attempt to	    finding effects that may be	constrained by the TYPE	of
build a	language tool that would have the major	features of structure (S/W may not be general, only specific to	certain
natural	languages, but would have some strong warping in    types of structures).
its structure that was deviant from all	other natural lan-    As to Lojban becoming widely spoken, you have to decide
guages.	 This warping would attempt to take normal	    how	wide the goal is.  Esperanto managed up	to a million
structures that	presumably set limits on thought, and 'push speakers in	100 years, and the world population and	mass
them outward in	some predictable dimension'.  His language  media needed for rapid expansion of	a language teaching
tool would be an extreme case, not a 'typical language'	but effort should make Lojban's	potential expansion rate
'a severely atypical one', in order to enable any Whorfian  significantly higher, if people find a reason to learn it.
effects	to be more easily seen.	 He attempted to put	    Right now the primary such reason is as a linguistic toy,
'decisive but non-essential differences' into the language; as Dan accuses, since there	is no obvious financial	gain.
he still needed	the language to	be speakable....	    Thus we indeed have	considerable self-selection in the
  "The structural extreme he chose was to model	the grammar community today.  This can easily change:
on the well-understood structures of symbolic logic.  There
are no natural languages based on a predicate grammar, yet  - development of computer applications could make learning
logicians are skilled at analyzing the structural	      Lojban a necessity external to personal choice in	some
relationships between natural language and formal logic....   fields;
The essence of these concepts is that 'it forces on its	    - development of cross-cultural/foreign language education
speakers a reasonably small set	of assumptions about the      applications could lead to more widespread use of	Lojban
world ... perhaps the smallest possible	set'.  'Any	      at a low level by	large segments of population.  Some of
speaker, from any culture, should find it possible to	      these will pursue	more advanced study of Lojban.
express	in Loglan what he takes	for granted about the world - identifying any preliminary S/W effects that are
... without imposing ... or being able to impose these as-    perceived	as beneficial will greatly heighten interest in
sumptions on his auditor'...."				      learning the language among potential beneficiaries.
							    - if research using	Lojban is funded, some people might
  (Outer text by Robert	LeChevalier, from Ju'i Lobypli #6.    actually be paid to learn	Lojban as test subjects	(and
Inner quotations are from James	Cooke Brown, Loglan 1, 3rd    teach it to their	children?).  These would presumably be
Edition.)						      chosen to	negate self-selection factors, though
							      willingness to accept payment for	this sort of thing is
20. lojbab: (responding	to 18.)	 Psychological and other      itself a kind of selection (all psychological studies of
tests of S/W were performed using natural languages in the    volunteers could be questioned on	this basis, but	such
1950's - at least two large studies, though I don't have      studies are standard in the field, so presumably there is
references handy.  They	turned up fairly negative results,    capability to filter out such bias in the	testing
and this is one	reason why S/W went into eclipse.  (Other     methods).
factors	included an inability to agree even on what the

							   51


In short, if the language in useful as a tool, it will be   - developing tools and techniques for eventual S/W testing;
used.  As the size and diversity of the	community grows,      trying to	identify what the effects will be and how they
self-selection becomes less of a bias factor.		      can be detected;
  However, self-selection isn't	an irremediable	bias.  Nor  - actually participating in	the language community,	using
is the lack of a large community of speakers.  In internal    your linguistic skills to	help quickly build a set of
discussions, some Loglan/ Lojban supporters have argued	for   initial usage patterns based on the unambiguous language
preliminary S/W	testing	using second-language adults,	      (and vocabulary, idiom, etc.) that when passed on	to
notably	language inventor J. C.	Brown who proposed in his     'native speakers'	in the future provides them with a
book on	the language (Loglan 1,	4th edition) a study where    better, more robust, starting point for evolutionary
adults of several cultures are all taught Loglan over a	      change;
summer and tested before and after for changes in 'the way  - developing techniques of teaching	the language as	a
they think'.  (I personally think his design to	be flawed     second language, when there is no	existing idiom.
and too	simplistic, but	if Lojban's S/W	effects	are truly     Related to this is possibly using	Lojban's simple
dramatic, they could show up in	2nd language fluent	      structures and culture-free properties to	enhance
speakers.  And such appearance would pretty much guarantee    language education.
that people would find a way to	build a	testable 'culture'  - preparing	other, non-S/W related research	based on
of 1st language	speakers, perhaps by raising children	      Lojban's features	and its	availability as	a experimental
bilingually during the 'critical period', or even from	      linguistics platform or alternatively as a totally self-
birth.)							      contained	'model'	of a language;
  Incidentally,	current	thinking in the	community is that   - using Lojban for other linguistic	research that is not as
'logical' thought or expression	is not necessarily the	      dependent	on a 'native' base, including studies of
aspect most likely to generate noticeable S/W effects.	The   language learning	(1st and 2nd), as a medium for culture-
removal	of grammatical ambiguity from modification (as	      free recording of	linguistic information in studies of
exemplified by the much-discussed plastic cat food lid)	      other languages (translating to English may help an
seems to heighten creative exploration of word combination.   English-native reader of your paper get the gist of what
This comes from	self-observation, and is a linguistic toy     a	foreign	language is saying, but	is subject to all the
feature, but could lead	to profound changes in problem-	      problems of English cultural usage and ambiguity.	 There
solving	in a community speaking	Lojban,	which ought to	      are a lot	of non-native English readers who may not be
qualify	as a bona-fide S/W effect.			      aware of those features. (In short, using	Lojban as an
  Other	areas of possible benefit are (surprisingly in a      'international language of linguistics' much as IPA
'logical' language) emotional expression.  Lojban has a	      serves for phonetics).
fully developed	set of metalinguistic and emotional	    - and finally, serving as peer reviewers to	make sure that
attitude indicators that supplant much of the baggage of      those of us working directly on the project don't	get our
aspect and mood	found in natural languages, but	most	      heads too	far into the clouds.  This of course requires
clearly	separate indicative statements from the	emotional     that you know something of what we're trying to do, which
communication associated with those statements.	 This might   is why we	keep bombarding	this forum with	so many	long
lead to	freer expression and consideration of ideas, since    messages :-)
stating	an idea	can be distinguished from supporting that
idea.  The set of possible indicators is also large enough		     ________________________
to provide specificity and clarity of emotions that is
difficult in natural languages.	 It is easy to imagine	    The	following are additions	to the bibliography of Sapir-
enormous changes in communicative activities that involve   Whorf Hypothesis materials compiled	during the discussions
emotions, and corresponding 'world view' changes as a	    on the computer networks.
result.	 Again,	only time will tell.
  Time is a significant	factor here in evaluating Lojban's  Here are some references to	discussions of the Sapir-Whorf
relevance to linguistics today.	 In the	next 10	years,	    Hypothesis.	 One is	recent;	the Fishman article as far as I
there will be ONLY 2nd language	adults and perhaps a few    know has not really	been replied to	anywhere that I	know
children raised	by non-fluent adults.  For at least a	    of.	 (The first part of the	bibliography is	courtesy of
generation after that, immediate self-selection	will be	a   Alan Munn, University of Maryland, who made	these com-
significant potential factor, and Lojban will be at best    ments).
questionably a 'living language', making its results less
than certain.						    Brown, R. (1957) "Linguistic Determinism and Parts of
  Still, for linguists TODAY, interest in Lojban can be	    Speech", Journal of	Abnormal Social	Psychology 55, 1-5.
tied to	any of several major channels:
- possible use of 2nd language speakers	to get preliminary  Brown, R. and E. Lenneberg (1958) "Studies in Linguistic
  ideas	on whether S/W is likely;			    Relativity", in E. Maccoby,	T. H. Newcomb &	E. L. Hartley
- making sure that Lojban's design is as linguistically	    (eds.), Readings in	Social Psychology (3rd ed.), New York:
  sound	as we can make it given	current	linguistic	    Holt, Rinehart & Winston, pp. 9-18.
  knowledge, ensuring that eventual S/W	results	are
  meaningful;

							   52


In the same volume, "The Function of Language		    and	it has a phonetic writing system.  In studies done with
Classification in Behavior", by	John B.	Carroll	and Joseph  English school children it was demonstrated	that one year
B. Casagrande, pp. 18-31.				    of instruction in Esperanto	gave the students the same
							    level of language competence as five years of studying
Fishman, J. (1960) "A Systematization of the Whorfian	    French.  Once you learn to conjugate one verb, you know how
Hypothesis", Behavioral	Science	5, pp. 232-239.		    to conjugate them all!

Hoijer,	H. (1954) Language in Culture (Comparative Studies  2. daj: (responding	to 1.)	I agree	100% that an artificial
of Cultures and	Civilizations, No. 3; Memoirs of the	    language is	easier to learn	as a second language, and as a
American Anthropological Association, No. 79), Chicago:	    medium of international communication, something like
University of Chicago Press.				    Esperanto may make more sense than English.	 In fact, after
							    teaching English as	a foreign language for a couple	of
Kay, P.	and W. Kempton (1984)  "What is	the Sapir-Whorf	    years, I came to the conclusion that it would make much
Hypothesis?", American Anthropologist pp. 86, 65-79.	    more sense to teach	Pidgin English than real English.
							      But when pidgins become the primary language of a
Whorf, B.L. (1939) "The	relation of habitual thought and    community, they cease to be	regular	and simple.  Why?  Is
behavior to language", in B.L. Whorf (1956) The	Selected    creolization a degenerative	process, or do the
Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf,	Cambridge MA: MIT Press.    irregularities have	a function in language?	 I think we
							    need an answer to this question before we assume that we
These articles are both	for and	against	SWH; The Brown	    can	construct a "logical" language and use it as a real
papers and the Kay/Kempton paper are attempts to test the   medium of communication.
hypothesis.  The Fishman article discusses the results of
some experiments and where they	leave us with respect to    3. lojbab: (responding to 2.)  On the other	hand, why not
various	versions of SW.					    invent a completely	regular	language, with a 'cultural
							    ethic' that	values that regularity,	and observe what if any
Other Sapir-Whorf references:				    irregularities come	into existence.

Alford,	Danny K. 1978. "The Demise of the Whorf	Hypothesis  4. dtate: (responding to 3.)  Because you can't create a
(A Major Revision in the History of Linguistics)",	    'cultural ethic' by	fiat.
Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley	    5. lojbab: (continuation of	3.)  Lojban is not limited in
Linguistic Society 4:485-99.				    linguistic research	application to testing Sapir-Whorf;
							    I've given a lot of	my own effort to ensuring that the
Hymes, Dell, 1968. "Two	Types of Linguistic Relativity", in design is robust enough to allow other studies.  Pidgins
Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the UCLA Sociolinguistics  and	creoles	of the world have all evolved from interaction
Conference (1964).  Ed.	by W. Bright. Janua Linguarum	    between two	or more	already	irregular and highly complex
Series Major, 20.  Mouton: The Hague. pp. 114-167.	    languages.	Variables to watch in analyzing	the evolution
							    of the language are	too many and too poorly	understood.
Lucy, John, 1985. "Whorf's View	of the Linguistic Mediation Lojban is both much	simpler	and highly regular.  Presumably
of Thought", in	E. Mertz and R.	J. Parmentier, Semiotic	    as a result, the variables affecting pidginization and
Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychosocial Perspectives,	    creolization, and indeed all other manner of linguistic
Orlando: Academic Press.				    change will	stand out much better.
							      Furthermore, as a	fledgling 'international language' that
McNeill, David,	1987.  "Linguistic Determinism:	The	    differs structurally from all of the 'first	languages' of
Whorfian Hypothesis", Chapter 6	of Psycholinguistics, A	New the	world, the studies of evolutionary processes can be
Approach, New York: Harper and Row. pp.	173-209.	    conducted over and again as	Lojban interacts with each of
							    the	languages and cultures in which	it is introduced.
		 ________________________		      Other areas of possible Lojban application include
	      Subject:	Esperanto and Lojban		    language universals	(Lojban	is relatively neutral on some
							    of these, supporting many competing	forms; the ones	that
  Participants:						    survive or spread as the language becomes a	'living'
[email protected] (Neal D. McBurnett)			    language' are thus worth studying to find out why.)	and
[email protected] (John Cowan)			    universal grammar (if Lojban proves	to be acquired by chil-
[email protected] (David A.	Johns)			    dren and adults as easily as natural languages, UG will
[email protected] (Eric Pepke)			    have to be able to explain it).
[email protected] (Loren Petrich)			      Note that	a small	number of Lojban speakers (especially
[email protected]	(David M Tate)			    in a specific speaking locale) would be expected to	show
[email protected] (Bob LeChevalier)		    evolutionary effects more quickly, enhancing the chances of
							    observing such effects during a short research period.
1. neal:  Esperanto is much easier to learn than English or We've set an early prescriptive policy towards the language
any other ethnic language because it has few irregularities precisely to allow enough of a fluent speaker base to form

							   53


to preserve some type of linguistic identity to	serve as a		     ________________________
starting point.						    8. loren: (later in	the discussion)	 I wonder how Lojban
							    handles (1)	words for opposites and	(2) verb aspects (if
6. pepke: (responding to 2.)  "Degenerative" is	kind of	a   present).
loaded term.  It may just be the point of view.	 If you
start off with an artificially "perfect" language, just	    9. cowan: (responding to 8.)  The term "opposite" is a bit
about any change will seem degenerative.		    vague.  Among its 1300+ root words,	some have "opposites"
							    and	some don't.  There are words for both "increase" and
7. lojbab: (responding to 6.)  Not in the case of Lojban.   "decrease";	"beautiful" is a root but "ugly" is not.  Since
ONLY a change that introduces structural ambiguity is	    the	root words are primarily chosen	for ease-of-use	in
automatically 'frowned upon', and I personally doubt there  making compounds, this was justified primarily by the
is a major evolutionary	force in language that promotes	    desire to make shorter compounds.
such ambiguity 'for it's own sake' - there would have to be   There is a faction which has argued that there are too
some other explanation for an ambiguity	to be introduced.   many root words (and that opposites	in particular should be
  Most other types of changes (word formation rules,	    stripped out); another faction holds that there are	too few
phonological changes, preference in word order among them)  (that choosing "beautiful" rather than "ugly" is an
would not be inherently	degenerative. No one in	the Lojban  unwanted bias).  In	fact, having a list of root words at
community thinks that we've created a 'perfect'	language,   all	is ipso	facto a	bias, but it is	a known	bias which can
only an	'adequate' one for communication and linguistic	    be allowed for.  The alternative is	having to construct 4-5
research.						    million distinct words with	no compounding rules at	all to
							    cover the vocabulary range of the world's languages.
							      The general Lojban solution lies in the four particles
							    "na'e", "to'e", "no'e", and	"je'a",	which are four kinds of
							    scalar negation.  This is distinct from contradictory
							    negation ("It is not the case that...") which is
							    represented	in Lojban by "na" and "naku".
							      "na'e" is	nonspecific scalar negation, analogous to
							    English "non-".
							    "lo	na'e gerku" means "a non-dog", which in	principle could
							    be anything	that is	not a dog, but probably	means some
							    other kind of animal.
							      "to'e" is	polar opposite scalar negation,	analogous to
							    some uses of English "un-"/"in-".  "Beautiful" is "melbi",
							    and	"ugly" is "to'e	melbi".	 "barda" ("large") means the
							    same as "to'e cmalu" ("unsmall"), and vice versa.
							      "no'e" is	scalar neutral negation.  This arises when a
							    scale whose	opposing ends are "X" and "to'e	X" has a
							    natural midpoint.  "no'e melbi" for	example	might be
							    translated "plain" or "ordinary-looking".
							      "je'a" is	affirmation, and has the same meaning as no
							    particle at	all.  It is chiefly useful to deny one of the
							    other particles in conversation [ed. note, also for
							    emphatic affirmation].
							      (Lojban also has another type of negation	called
							    metalinguistic negation, where the adequacy	of the
							    utterance is denied	due to category	mistake	or what	have
							    you.  The particle "na'i" indicates	that what precedes it
							    (or	the whole last utterance, if nothing precedes in this
							    utterance) is erroneous in some such way.  If a Lojbanist
							    asks another:

								   xu do sisti le zu'o do rapdarxi le do fetspe

							    literally:
							     (True or false?) You cease	the activity of	repeat-hitting
										your female-spouse?

							    or idiomatically:
									Have you stopped beating your wife?


							   54


a good and sufficient answer is	"na'i".)		    to any predicate whatsoever	by using the particle "fi'o"
  The above sentence could be expressed	with the aspect	    which makes	a predicate into an aspectual.
grammar	rather than with the word "sisti" (cease), but I
don't know the language	well enough to do so yet.			     ________________________
  The tense/aspect system of Lojban is one of the most			 Subject:  Lojban gismu	Vocabulary
complex	parts of the grammar, and I am far from	sure that I
understand it altogether.  Fortunately,	it is 100%	      Participants:
optional.  Everything it can express can also be expressed  [email protected] (Ivan Derzhanski
semantically through the predicate grammar, or just omitted [email protected] (Bob LeChevalier)
altogether.
  Rather than trying to	explain	the whole thing		    1. lojbab: [part of	a longer discussion on Lojban roots]
systematically,	I will simply give an unsystematic	    We wanted to maximize ease of learning, BUT	not at the
catalogue of the kinds of things that can be expressed.	    expense of cultural	neutrality.  Loglan (generic) thus
Note:  any of these items may be combined either by logical maximizes reflecting the sequences of phonemes in a	given
connectives (and, or, xor, etc.) or by non-logical ones	    word from the corresponding	words in the source languages,
(joined	with, mixed with, union, intersection, etc.)	    weighted by	speaker	population.  Thus 'blanu' has the
  It is	also worth mentioning that Lojban tense	is "sticky" phonemes in	order of English 'blue'	and Chinese 'lan' (with
and that once set it propagates	to all following untensed   appropriate	tone which I don't have	handy).	 The result is
sentences [ed. note:  This is the default pragmatic	    intended to	be words that are distinctly different from
interpretation for many	contexts; however there	may be	    those of any one language, but which sound 'natural' to
contextual circumstances where tense does not carry over,   speakers of	the source languages and also have an indirect
such as:]  In stories, this is modified	a bit by the	    cognate value - not	one that is necessarily	obvious, but
assumption that	narrative flows	in time, so each sentence   one	that can be used to learn the word if it is pointed
may represent a	time later than	that of	the preceding one.  out.
One may, however, by proper use	of the time offset
machinery, tell	stories	backwards or inside-out	as desired. 2. ivan: (responding to 1.)	If it is pointed out indeed.  I
  First, Lojban	tense handles both time	relations and space speak Russian, English, Spanish and	Hindi, and I know some
relations, where time may be treated either as sui generis  Arabic, but	my attempts to analyze some Lojban words and to
or in an Einsteinian way as the	fourth spatial dimension.   discover their roots failed	almost totally.
Time and space are formally parallel:  for each, there is a
way of specifying an origin, one or more offsets from the   3. lojbab: (responding to 2.) At first contact, you	WILL
origin (directions in time or space), and an interval	    need to have the connection	pointed	out.  But I suspect
around the point thus determined.  In the case of space	    that after the connections are pointed out for a few words,
only, the interval may be specified as 1-, 2-, 3- or 4-	    someone with your language experience will begin to	see the
dimensional.  In addition, there is machinery for rep-	    patterns.  One problem, of course, is that we go for aural
resenting motions in space, but	not in time.  Should time   recognition, NOT visual recognition, and use Lojbanized
travel become practicable, the 4-dimensional facilities	of  phonetics.	The Procrustean	bed of Lojban morphology (all
the space motion grammar may become useful.		    roots are of the pattern CCVCV or CVCCV) also constrains
  Intervals may	also be	modified by either or both of two   the	result enormously.  The	algorithm we use attempts,
kinds of modifiers.  One type is a quantified tense, which  within the framework of this morphology, to	maximize aural
may be either objective	(corresponding to English "never",  recognition	for an active student of the language.
"once",	"twice", ..., "always" for time, or "nowhere", "in
one place", ..., "everywhere" for space) or subjective	    4. lojbab: (continuation of	1.) Incidentally, once you get
(things	like "habitually" and "continuously").	The other   used to them, the regularities in Lojban words have	their
type is	an "event contour", handling things like "during",  own	aesthetic value, just as Nick's	portmanteau words from
"after the (natural) end of", "after the termination of",   Esperanto do.  Lojban words	have a lot of medial 'n' and
etc.							    'r'	and initial fricatives 'j', 'c', and 's', all derived
  There	is also	a mechanism for	specifying the		    from the heavy Chinese weighting.  I have a	little trouble
actuality/potentiality status of a predication:	things like with the fricatives	unless I'm relaxed - I get 'she	sells
"can and has", "can but	has not", etc.			    sea	shells'	type tongue twisters, but I presume the	Chinese
  Separate from	all this, Lojban prepositions (really case  will find it pleasant.
tags) can be used as adverbials	also, and are grammatically
almost interchangeable with the	tenses.	 Likewise, the	    5. ivan: (responding to 4.)	No offence intended, but I'd
tenses can be used prepositionally.  "pu" represents the    like to hear the Chinese confirm this.  For	all you	know,
past tense (time direction in the past), but means "earlier they may not.  Schleyer went out of	his way	to put as few
than" as a preposition.	 "bai" on the other hand is the	    "r"s as possible in	VolapЃk	words, so that the Chinese will
preposition "under the compulsion of" but means	"forcedly"  be happy.  I hope at least his Chinese find	it easy	to say
when used as an	aspectual.  This list of		    "obs" `we' or "coecs" `government officials' (i.e.
prepositions/adverbials/ aspectuals/case tags is extensible `judges'), because I don't.	 :-)


							   55


6. lojbab: (responding to 5.) That of course is	the problem
with any a priori word-making scheme.  Especially without   The	range of consonant clusters we permit in Lojban	was
strong aid from	native speakers.  We have had one Chinese   augmented after a Slavic languages expert pointed out that
speaker	look at	this question directly,	but since she is    our	set was	extremely tame and excessively constraining on
also fluent in German and English, she isn't necessarily an the	words and their	recognition.  Lojban root words	can be
unbiased observer.  The	reason for the high sibilant	    recognized as roots	by the presence	of the consonant
frequencies though, is that several Chinese consonants map  cluster - which is never found in structure	words and al-
into Lojban 'c', 's', and 'j'.				    ways found in predicate words.  We thus constrained	the set
							    of clusters	in medial position by disallowing
Still, there is	a balancing act.  Chinese is favored by	the voiced/unvoiced mixing of stops and	fricatives, doubled
weighting scheme, but as you point out,	we have	'r' and	'l' consonants,	and most mixed sibilants.  Permitted initial
as phonemes which are much more	common in other	languages.  clusters are a subset of these (48), which are phonetically
Still, a high percentage of Lojban roots have syllable	    symmetric (thus, because we	allow the unvoiced 'st', we
ending '-an' making 'n'	such a common letter in	the	    allow the voiced equivalent	'zd', even though it isn't
language, its frequency	exceeds	most vowels (in	a language  found in English.
more vowel rich	than English because of	all the	CV and CVV
structure words).					    Languages require a	certain	amount of redundancy to	be
							    understandable.  My	own comparative	examination seems to
We had to make guesses on how to achieve recognizability in indicate that most languages have either consonant clusters
other languages, (and were also	constrained to be	    or tones, and that having one seems	to minimize the
consistent with	30 years of prior work by language inventor evolutionary pressure towards the other.  Polynesian and
Brown).	 Ideally, there	would have been	scientific testing  Japanese are the only exceptions to	this I know of (and
of our algorithm in native speakers of each language before Japanese actually has some clusters, though	they aren't
making the words, but this wasn't possible and indeed	    reflected in the writing system).  Can anybody confirm or
wasn't important enough.				    deny my observation?  What other techniques	are found in
							    languages that improve redundancy.
The important thing was	to have	a neutral word-making
method that did	not favor any one language population, and  12.	lojbab:	(continuation of 1., from 7. and 9.) So	we end
paid at	least lip service to recognizing language	    up with a language that has	some aesthetic appeal for
diversity.  We also wanted non-random words, with phonemes  everyone, but perhaps doesn't satisfy everyone; a pleasant
occurring in orders that are speakable and familiar, and we cultural tension/ balance.
got this.
							    13.	ivan: (responding to 12.) And again, don't stress too
7. lojbab: (continuation of 1.,	from 4.) Some of the	    much on the	aesthetic side.	 It is too subjective. It is up
initial	consonant clusters look	intimidating, but Ivan	    to the person.  Let's talk efficiency and ease.
won't mind them.
							    14.	lojbab:	(responding to 13.) Aesthetics is enormously
8. ivan: (responding to	7.) I certainly	don't.	I don't	    important, even though subjective.	It determines people's
take them all for granted, but they are	not intimidating in first reactions to the language.  Efficiency can be
any case.						    quantified,	and is more objective, as you say.  But
							    languages need some	minimum	redundancy and I suspect that
9. lojbab: (continuation of 7.)	(and might prefer them)	    we don't know what that minimum is.	 So pushing too	hard in
							    this direction might give a	language that is too efficient
10. ivan: (responding to 9.) ... prefer	them to	what?  Not  to be practical (Anyone for	Speedtalk - Heinlein's language
to simple consonant-vowel alternation, no.  I wouldn't miss in 'Gulf').
the clusters if	they weren't there.  But they are, and I
won't complain.						    15.	lojbab:	(continuation of 1.) Thus spaghetti becomes
							    'djarspageti', with	the 'dja' from 'cidja',	the word for
11. lojbab: (responding	to 10.)	One of the most	frequent    'food'.
comments about Lojban words is that the	consonant clusters
look hard to English speakers, and this	was more an answer  16.	ivan: (responding to 15.) "ci" is the Chinese _shi4_, I
to this	criticism than a claim about the aesthetics of	    presume.  What is "dja"?
Slavic language	speakers.  Still, it seems a reasonable
presumption that most people feel more comfortable with	a   17.	lojbab:	(responding to 16.) Ivan Derzhanski asked about
language that sounds a little like their own.		    the	Lojban etymologies, and	gave 'cidja' as	an example
Interestingly, our phonology has a result that several	    word.  It is halfway down this list.
people with experience with a variety of languages have
said that Lojban (as I speak it) sounds	like a south Slavic The	following are rough etymologies	of a sampling of Lojban
language.  It will be interesting at some point	to have	a   words.  These are being assembled for eventual publication
southern Slavic	speaker	confirm	this.

							   56


as a set, but we have to manually reconstruct what the	    I'll schematically outline the information for the first
computer-run algorithm did for each word.		    word:

It is key to remember that we often ran	several	words from  714c      katna	82.00	     cut
a single language against words	from other languages in
order to select	the word with the highest score.  In some   [Algo     [Lojban	[score	     [English
cases, this means that the word	from a language	that 'won'  run	#]    word]	(0-100)]     keyword]
is not the best	word for the concept in	the language.
Instead, subject to a little educated guesswork, we have    [This line is from a summary file of algorithm outputs,
words that offer a reasonable cognate-like memory hook	    prepared manually at the time we made the words.]
between	the Lojban word	and a related source-language word.
  A second note, is that words are Lojbanized phonetically.		  kan kat kat kort kas kata
This can result	in some	strange-looking	spellings; e.g.
English	and Russian vowels and final consonants	often	    [Lojbanized	phonetic forms of the source language words -
change.							    the	order of words is Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish,
							    Russian, Arabic.  We have not yet manually gone back to our
							    paper originals to get the Romanized natural language
							    spellings.	Note:  some declensional word endings were
							    systematically removed to get a true root.	This was to
							    avoid getting a false recognition score solely from	the
							    declension.	 The stop component of affricates were removed
							    for	the same reason.  There	were a few other systematic a
							    priori modifications to the	source language	words that I
							    can	respond	to if anyone has questions about a word.  Note
							    that the source word may not be the	best word for the
							    concept in the language.  We aren't	expert in all these
							    languages, and in any case wanted to have a	memory hook for
							    the	word more than a cognate.

							    (cut  )

							    [English keyword from the algorithm	output file]

							    katna  82.00 3 3 3 0 2 4

							    [Lojban word and score from	the output file	- there	were
							    occasional typos in	making the manual summary, which we are
							    only now finding (about 3-4% error rate - we were working
							    quickly and	didn't check ourselves well).  The 6 digits are
							    scores for the 6 source words, in order.  The numbers
							    represent phoneme matches, in order	- a score of 1 was
							    considered useless for recognition,	and a score of 2
							    required the phonemes to be	adjacent or separated by
							    exactly one	phoneme	in BOTH	source and Lojban.  Thus 'kort'
							    from Spanish gets a	0 score	even though it has some	cognate
							    value.]

							    714c  katna	    82.00     cut
								  kan kat kat kort kas kata
								  (cut	)
								  katna	 82.00 3 3 3 0 2 4


							   57


714c  klaku	60.90	  weep (cry)			    714e  fetsi	    62.14     female/fem-
      ku krai vilap ior	plak baka				  si fem stri feminin jiensk uncau
      (weep  )							  (female  )
      klaku  60.90 2 2 2 0 3 2					  fetsi	 62.14 2 2 2 3 2 0

714c  krixa	61.30	  cry out			    714e  spoja	    57.51     explode
      xan krai cila grit kric sarax				  ja iksplod vispot eksplo vzriv fajar
      (cry out	)						  (explode  )
      krixa  61.30 2 3 2 2 3 2					  spoja	 57.51 2 3 3 3 0 2

714c  kulnu	45.20	  culture			    714f  catlu	    45.05     look
      uen kalcr	sabiat kultur kultur takaf			  ciau luk dek mir smatr tatala
      uen kalcr	sanskrit kultur	kultur takaf			  ciau luk dek ve smatr	tatala
      uen kalcr	sabiat kultur kultur tarbut			  (look	at  )
      uen kalcr	sanskrit kultur	kultur tarbut			  catlu	 45.05 3 2 0 0 2 3
      (culture	)
      kulnu  45.20 2 2 0 4 4 0				    714f  grake	    80.70     gram
								  ke gram gram gram gram giram
714c  mitre	89.40	  meter					  (gram	 )
      mi mitr mitar metr mietr mitr				  grake	 80.70 2 3 3 3 3 3
      (meter  )
      mitre  89.40 2 4 4 3 4 4				    714f  krefu	    57.53     recur
								  3/3o lower score no conflict affix
714c  sanmi	62.90	  meal					  [the 3rd best	word was taken to give the word	a short
      san mil bojan sen	eda taam				 affix]
      (meal  )							  fu rikr pir rekur pere takrar
      sanmi  62.90 3 2 2 2 0 2					  (recur  )
								  krefu	 57.53 2 2 0 3 2 2
714c  sefta	60.00	  surface/face
      2/2o lower score no conflict [the	highest	score word  714f  lijda	    42.72     religion (relig-)
     was used]							  jiau rilij darm relixio religi din
      se srfis satax kostad pavierxnast	satxa			  (religious  )
      (surface	)						  lijda	 42.72 2 3 2 2 2 0
      sefta  60.00 2 2 3 3 0 3
							    714f  mlana	    54.29     side/lateral
714d  bersa	57.00	  son					  4/4o lower score no conflict affix
      er san beta ix sin ibn					  mian latrl satax lad starana janib
      er san beta ix sin najl					  mian latrl bagal lad starana janib
      (son  )							  (side	 )
      bersa  57.00 2 2 3 0 0 0					  mlana	 54.29 3 2 2 2 3 2

714d  pruxi	53.00	  spirit			    714f  rinju	    49.08     restrain
      guei spirit pret espiritu	dux rux				  ju ristrein pratiband	refren abuzdiv kabax
      (spirit  )						  ju ristrein pratiband	refren sdierjiv	kabax
      pruxi  53.00 2 3 2 3 2 3					  (restrain  )
								  rinju	 49.08 2 3 3 2 0 0
714d  suksa	61.20	  sudden
      su sadn saxsa subit vdruk	faja
      su sadn saxsa subit vdruk	bagta
      (sudden  )
      suksa  61.20 2 2 3 2 2 0

714e  cidja	61.45	  food/feed
      ci fid bojan komid pic gida
      (food  )
      cidja  61.45 2 2 2 2 0 3

							   58


		 ________________________		    Part VI:  Grammar
 Subject:  Interlinguistics and	Lojban Vocabulary Building  Probal Dasgupta:  Degree words in Esperanto	and categories
							    in Universal Grammar
  Participants:						    Klaus Schubert:  An	unplanned development in planned
[email protected] (Jeff Prothero)		    languages.
[email protected] (Bob LeChevalier)
[email protected] (Mike Urban)				    Part VII:  Terminology and Computational Lexicography
							    Wera Blanke:  Terminological standardization - its roots
Jeff Prothero:						    and	fruits in planned languages
							    Rudiger Eichholz:  Terminics in the	interethnic language
I've been poking through the Linguistics section of the	    Victor Sadler:  Knowledge-driven terminography for machine
campus library,	and found a book which might interest other translation
Loglanists:								   -----------------------------

Trends in Linguistics -	 Studies and Monographs	42:	      I'm not a	linguist, and won't attempt to review the book
Interlinguistics Aspects of the	Science	of Planned	    from a linguistics point of	view, but I will highlight some
Languages, Klaus Schubert (Ed.), Mouton	de Gruyter 1989,    points of particular interest to Loglanists:
ISBN 3-11-011910-2, 350	pg., $66.			      First, there is some mention of Loglan (and the thousand-
							    odd	other artificial language projects to date), but the
  "This	book ... is an invitation to all those interested   bulk of the	focus is on Esperanto, for the simple reason
in languages and linguistics to	make themselves	acquainted  that 99.9% of fluent planned-language users	speak
with some recent streams of scientific discussion in the    Esperanto, and a similar percentage	of the written-text
field of planned languages."				    corpus from	the planned language community is in Esperanto.
  The book is a	collection of fifteen recent papers in	    (Any Loglanists who	cannot tolerate	mention	of That
interlinguistics.  For folks who (like me) haven't been	    Language are invited to stop reading at this point.	:-)
following the field, the bibliographies	provide	an up-to-     Second, I	(and perhaps most Loglanists) was unaware of
date set of pointers into the literature, plus some	    the	Distributed Language Translation project, which	seems
overviews of it.  I think the table of contents	gives an    to be of considerable potential interest to	Loglanists.
adequate idea of the scope and focus of	the book:	    The	following is quoted for	comment:

	 -----------------------------------------	      "Distributed Language Translation	is the name of a long-
Part I:	 Introductions					    term research and development project carried out by the
Andre Martinet:	 The proof of the pudding		    BSO	software house in Utrecht with funding from the
Klaus Schubert:	 Interlinguistics - its	aims, its	    Netherlands	Ministry of Economic Affairs.  For the present
achievements, and its place in language	science.	    seven year period (1985-1991) it has a budget of 17	million
							    guilders...	 Although much larger in size than earlier
Part II:  Planned Languages in Linguistics		    attempts, DLT started off as just another project of the
Aleksandr D Dulicenko:	Ethnic language	and planned	    second stage, using	Esperanto as its intermediate language.
language.						    Esperanto had been judged suitable for this	purpose	because
Detlev Blanke:	Planned	languages - a survey of	some of	the of its highly regular syntax and morphology	and because its
main problems.						    agglutinative nature promised an especially	efficient
Sergej N Kuznecov:  Interlinguistics: a	branch of applied   possibility	of morpheme-based coding of messages for
linguistics?						    network transmission.  During the course of	the first years
							    of the large-scale practical development, however, the role
Part III:  Languages Design and	Language Change		    of Esperanto in the	DLT system increased substantially. the
Dan Maxwell:  Principles for constructing Planned Languages intermediate language took over more and more processes
Francois Lo Jacomo:  Optimization in language planning	    originally designed	to be carried out either in the	source
Claude Piron:  A few notes on the evolution of Esperanto    or in the target languages of the multilingual system.
							    When I consider the	DLT system to be one step more highly
Part IV:  Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics	    developed than the earlier implementations involving
Jonathan Pool -	Bernard	Grofman:  Linguistic artificiality  Esperanto, it is because the increase in the role of
and cognitive competence				    Esperanto was due to intrinsic qualities of	Esperanto as a
Claude Piron:  Who are the speakers of Esperanto	    planned language.  In other	words, Esperanto is in DLT no
Tazio Carlevaro:  Planned auxiliary language and	    longer treated as any other	language (which	incidentally
communicative competence.				    has	a somewhat more	computer-friendly grammar than other
							    languages),	but it is now used in DLT for a	large part of
Part V:	 The Language of Literature			    the	overall	translation process because of its special
Manuel Halvelik:  Planning nonstandard language		    features as	a planned language.  Some facets of this
Pierre Janton:	If Shakespeare had written in Esperanto	    complex application	are discussed by Sadler	[in this
							    volume].

							   59


  "The functions fulfilled in DLT by means of Esperanto	are none), there seems no reason to idly re-invent a wheel of
numerous.  Generally speaking one can say that since the    this magnitude.  This ain't	a DOD project, folks :-) There
insight	about the usefulness of	a planned language's	    will be language bigots on both sides opposed in principle
particular features for	natural-language processing, the    to any cooperation,	of course...
whole DLT system design	has tended to move into	the Esper-    Less obviously, Loglan may be able to benefit from the
anto part of the system	all functions that are not specific design knowledge gained from a century's experience	with,
for particular source or target	languages.  These are all   and	linguistic study of, the Esperanto affix system.  Klaus
semantic and pragmatic processes of meaning disambiguation, Schubert's paper "An unplanned development in planned
word choice, detection of semantic deixis and reference	    languages:	A study	of word	grammar" is suggestive.
relations, etc.	 So-called knowledge of	the world has been  Zamenhof, like Jim Brown, paid no particular attention to
stored in a lexical knowledge bank and is consulted by a    word formation in his original design, simply providing a
word expert system.  All these applications of Artificial   uniform stock of primitives	which could be concatenated at
Intelligence are in DLT	carried	out entirely in	Esperanto.  will to create new words.
Let it be said explicitly:  Esperanto does not serve as	a     Despite this lack	of conscious planning, linguistic study
programming language (DLT is implemented in Prolog and C),  of word formation in Esperanto (started by Rene de Saussure
but as a human language	which renders the full content of   - not to be	confused with Ferdinand	Saussure - and
the source text	being translated with all its nuances,	    continued by Sergej	Kuznecov and others), this simple
disambiguates it and conveys it	to the second translation   syntactic combination rule has supported the development of
step to	a target language."				    a systematic set of	semantic combination rules.  These
							    (unwritten and unconscious but nevertheless	universal)
  Obviously, the existence of significant amounts of fully  semantic combination rules allow the Esperantist, when
disambiguated, machine-processable Esperanto text in such a faced with an unfamiliar compound word, to not only
translation system opens up the	possibility of wholesale    decompose it into (usually)	familiar primitives, but also
mechanical translation into Loglan.  This would	be, obvi-   to somewhat	systematically deduce the meaning of the word.
ously, particularly easy if the	(currently poorly-defined)  Recent decades have	apparently seen	increasingly free use
semantics of the Loglan	affix system were brought into line of these facilities.
with the existing semantics of the Esperanto affix system.    I	won't attempt a	summary	of these semantic rules	here,
In this	case, bi-directional mechanical	translation between but	will try to give the flavor.  Even though the primitive
the two	languages might	become quite easy, possible	    stock syntactically	forms a	single neutral pool, it	appears
producing sort of an "instant literature" for the	    that prims [gismu] are semantically	treated	in word
Loglanist.						    combination	by Esperantists	as being divided into noun,
  Building a simple correspondence between Esperanto and    verb and modifier (combined	adverb/adjective) classes,
Loglan affixes is not as far-fetched an	idea as	it might    which combine with distinctively different rules.  This
first seem.  Esperanto,	like Loglan, uses a single root-    distinction	provides one dimension for sorting prims.
stock of affixes which may be arbitrarily concatenated to     A	second,	orthogonal dimension sorts prims into the
form compound words.  Where Loglan assigns two forms to	    categories independent morpheme, declension	morpheme,
(most) concepts, a pred	and an affix, Esperanto	uniformly   ending (these first	three correspond roughly to Loglan's
assigns	only a single affix (cutting the learning load in   "little words"), affixoid, affix and root (these final
half!),	but this poses no particular intertranslation	    three correspond to	the Loglan affix set).	These affix
problem.  Loglan affixes are designed to be uniquely	    types combine according to a word-compounding grammar which
resolvable, and	Esperanto affixes are not, but this problem allows the listener	to distinguish (among other things)
has evidently already been solved, hence again poses no	    those compounds whose meaning is directly deducible	from
particular problem to bi-directional translation.  Again,   the	meaning	of the component prims,	from those compounds
Loglan has a (putatively) unambiguous grammar which	    whose meaning is metaphorical and must be learned.
Esperanto lacks, but this problem has apparently already      If Loglan	were to	borrow the Esperanto compound
been satisfactorily resolved at	the Esperanto end.	    vocabulary wholesale, it would of course, willy nilly,
							    inherit these semantic regularities	as well.  Otherwise, it
	 ----------------------------------------	    might be well to study these regularities and consciously
							    incorporate	them in	the Loglan vocabulary.
  Elsewhere on the affix front,	Loglan has a set of
affixes, but has barely	begun the enormous task	of building	       -------------------------------------
the compound-word vocabulary.  Loglan could learn from
Esperanto on (at least)	two levels.			    lojbab responds:

  Most obviously, bringing the Loglan affix system into	      1. Of the	authors, Detlev	Blanke is on our mailing list,
semantic correspondence	with the Esperanto affix system	    but	probably too recently to have based anything he	wrote
would open the door to wholesale borrowing of Esperanto	    on our material.
compound metaphors, capitalizing on the	planned	language      2. Jeff's	quoted description of the Netherlands
community's multi-mega-man-year	investment.  Unless there   translation	project	is useful; we were certainly aware of
are sound engineering concerns to the contrary (I see	    it.

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  3. The Netherlands project is	based on Esperanto - but    examples) from old Loglan to Lojban	by this	need to
with a caveat.	It uses	a formalized 'written' Esperanto    retranslate	all the	compounds (which he used extensively
form that may be slightly different from spoken	forms, but  and	in ways	inconsistent with our current, better defined
most importantly has disambiguating information	encoded	in  semantics).
the way	the language is	written.  For example grouping of     b) as mentioned above, our affixes are not in 1-to-1
modifiers (our 'pretty little girls school' problem) is	    correspondence.
solved by using	extra SPACES to	disambiguate which terms      c) their compounds undoubtedly have a strong European
modify which.						    bias.  I doubt if it is as bad as Jim Brown's (who built
  4. Esperanto's affix system is similarly ambiguous,	    the	compound for 'to man a ship' from the metaphor 'man-
though not as bad as 1975 Loglan was.  I've been given a    do'; i.e.  'to do as a man to'.  He	also did 'kill'	as
few examples.  Some handy ones are 'romano' which is either 'dead-make'	where 'make' is	the concept 'to	make ... from
a 'novel' (root	+ no affix) or 'Roman' (root 'Romo' = Rome  materials ...'  Sounds more	like Frankenstein to me,
plus affix -an-) and 'banano' which is either 'banana' or   folks.)  But I suspect Esperanto has a few zinger's	in
'bather' (from 'bano' =	bath + -an- again).  I've been told there.  Indeed, I understand the Ido people	criticized
there are many others. This type of ambiguity presents no   Esperanto most significantly for its illogical word
problem	to a machine translator, which can store hyphens to building, though I don't have details.  I also intend to
separate affixes etc.					    draw heavily from Chinese, which has a more	Lojbanic tanru
  5. I have not	investigated Esperanto's affix system	    'metaphor' system since it doesn't distinguish between
thoroughly, but	it is not compatible with Lojban's.  (We    nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  Esperanto tries to get
did ensure at one point	that we	had gismu, and therefore    around this	by allowing relatively free conversion between
rafsi corresponding to each of the Esperanto affixes,	    these categories, but the root concepts are	taken from
though.)  Simply put, Lojban has rafsi for EACH	of its	    European languages that more rigidly categorize words, and
gismu.	Esperanto has only a couple of dozen, and a MUCH    their compounds probably reflect European semantics.
larger root set.  Some Esperanto affixes have several	      d) Most importantly, Esperanto words are not gismu.  They
Lojban equivalents.  For example, we now have "na'e",	    do not have	place structures.  Lojban words	do, and	the
"no'e" and "to'e" for scalar negation of various sorts to   affix semantics and	compound semantics must	be consistent
correspond to Esperanto's "mal-".  Note	that Jeff did not   with those place structures.  We've	covered	this in
mention	the large root set in his comments.  Most of these  previous discussions in the	guise of warning against
roots are combined by concatenation, like German.  But	    'figurative' metaphors that	are inconsistent with the place
apparently as often as not a new root is coined	rather than structures.
concatenate, since Esperanto has no stigma attached to	      e) Nope.	Most importantly is another reason.  Lojban is
borrowing.  But	it is not true that Lojban has two forms    its	own language.  It should not be	an encoded Esperanto
while Esperanto	only has one.				    any	more then it should be an encoded English.  I suspect
  6. The Esperanto affix/semantic system is probably even   that just like English words, Esperanto words sometimes
more poorly defined than Lojban's.  As Jeff said, it is	    have diverse multiple context-dependent meanings (though
largely	intuitive; this	means independent of a rule system. again perhaps less severely	than English).	We want	to
However, there are rules; this was mentioned a few times in minimize this occurrence in	Lojban if not prevent it (we
the recent JL debates between Don Harlow, Athelstan and	    may	not succeed, but we can	try - the rule that every word
myself.	 A guy named Kalocsay apparently wrote up the rules created must have a	place structure	is a good start.)
early in this century; they are	some 40-50 pages long and     The bottom line is that each Esperanto word must be
most Esperantists never	read them much less learn them.	    checked for	validity, just like any	other lujvo proposal,
They also are apparently rather	freely violated	in actual   but	must also be translated	into its closest equivalent
usage; they were descriptive of	the known language, not	    Lojban tanru as well, and have a place structure written,
prescriptive.  By the way, I suspect that Lojban's	    etc.  The bulk of dictionary writing is this other work.  I
compounding semantics is actually better-defined than it    can	and have made new tanru/lujvo (without working out the
seems.	I just don't know enough about semantic	theory to   place structures) at the rate of several per MINUTE	for
attempt	to write it up.	 Jim Carter wrote a paper several   related concepts.  Coranth D'Gryphon posted	a couple
years ago, which we can	probably offer for distribution	(or hundred proposals last December (that no one commented on),
he can), on the	semantics of compound place structures.	 We which he made based	on English definitions.	 We have
haven't	adopted	what he	has said whole-hog, but	it	    perhaps 200	PAGES of word proposals	to go through.	Nearly
certainly has been influential.				    all	of these have no place structures defined or are
  7. We	will probably make extensive use of Esperanto	    defined haphazardly.
dictionaries when we start our buildup of the Lojban lujvo    Lojban also has a	multi-man-year investment behind it,
vocabulary.  We	thus will not reinvent the wheel in	    though not 'mega'.	No, Jeff, we aren't a DOD project, but
totality.  BUT,	we cannot do this freely for a large number in terms of	people working on it and time spent, we've far
of reasons.						    exceeded many such projects.  And word-building, whether
  a) our root set is different than theirs.  Some of their  for	better or worse, has received the greatest portion of
compounds will thus not	work.  The same	is true	of old	    that effort, since that is all most	people have felt
Loglan words.  We've been held up on translating Jim	    competent to work on.  (Incidentally, the Netherlands
Carter's Akira story (the one he uses in all his guaspi	    project IS a government sponsored project, if not defense-

							   61


related.  If we	had several million dollars, I think we'd   example, a suffix that would transform a noun root
be well	along the way to a translator ourselves.  Sheldon   `martelo' to a root	meaning	`to hammer') with rather subtle
Linker has claimed that	he could do a Lojban conversing	    shades of distinction in some cases.  The result is	a
program	with heuristic 'understanding' a la HAL	9000 in	5   language that is only slightly more	logical	than Esperanto,
man-years.  This is, in	my mind, of comparable difficulty   but	proportionally harder to learn,	and no less
to a heuristic translation program.  Any comments out there Eurocentric.
from those who know more than I	do on this subject?	      Linguistic tinkerers like	the Idists underestimated the
							    organic quality of Esperanto, or of	any living language.
	 -----------------------------------------	    Indeed, one	of the valuable	aspect of Lojban or Loglan, if
							    either ever	develops a substantial population of fluent
Mike Urban:						    speakers, will be to observe the extent to which the common
							    usages of the language diverge from	the prescriptive
  While	I am a dyed-in-the-wool	Esperantist, I agree that   definitions.  Such effects will, I think, be easier	to
attempting to modify or	extend Lojban in imitation of	    isolate and	analyze	in a language that was created `from
various	features of Esperanto would be a mistake (I also    whole cloth' than in an a posteriori language like
lose patience with reformers who want to Lojbanify aspects  Esperanto.
of Esperanto).
  Esperanto's `affix system is ambiguous' to the extent
that the language itself is indeed lexically ambiguous.		 Proposed Lojban Machine Grammar Baseline Changes
Not only `affixes' but roots themselves	are combinable,	and			   by John Cowan
so it is possible to come up with endless puns like the
`banano' ones you mentioned (`literaturo' might	be a tower  This document explains the technical corrections to	the
of letters, i.e., a `litera turo').  Without the careful,   tentative baseline grammar of 20 July as proposed by John
but somewhat restrictive, phonological rules that Loglan or Cowan.  Each change	is explained in	a three-part format:
Lojban provides, this kind of collision	is inevitable.	    CURRENT LANGUAGE; PROPOSED CHANGE; RATIONALE.  Those
  The borrowing	of words in Esperanto (`neologisms')	    wishing an exact list of changes to	the grammar baseline
instead	of using a compound form is a controversial topic.  rules should contact us.  The changes are sufficiently
Claude Piron, in his recent book, La Bona Lingvo, argues    minor that we do not plan to reissue the machine grammar
(quite convincingly, I think) that the tendency	of some	Es- before the final baseline, although	we are considering an
perantists to use neologisms, usually from French, English, addendum with the exact list of changes after they are
or Greek, is partly based on pedanticism, partly based on   formally approved, which will go to	those at level 2 and
Eurocentrism (``you mean, everyone doesn't know	what	    above.
`monotona' means?''), partly a Francophone desire to have a
separate word for everything, and largely a failure to	    Executive Summary:
really Think IN	Esperanto, rather than translating.  In	any 1 JOIK connection between operands
case, the distinction in Esperanto between affixes and root 2 Multiple EK_KEs between operands
words has always been a	thin one (Zamenhof mentioned that   3 Reorder BIhI GAhO	GAhO to	GAhO BIhI GAhO
you can	do anything with an affix that you can do with a    4 Remove GAhOs in parentheses
root), and has been getting even thinner in recent years.   5 NA SE without NAI	in afterthought	connectives
Combining by concatenation is every bit	as intrinsic to	the 6 Negation/conversion of BIhI
language as the	use of suffixes.			    7 KI by itself and after BAI
  You asked about Ido and Esperanto.  While I have not	    8 *ANNULLED*
looked at Ido in a number of years, I recall that the main  9 GIhEK_KE priority	change
gripe of the Idists was	not that Esperanto was too European 10	 No FAhO before	TUhU
- indeed, one of their reforms was to discard Esperanto's   11	 Attach	free modifierss	to tense_modal,	not PU_mod
rather a priori	`correlative' system of	relative pronouns   12	 Allow ZI PU and VI FAhA
(which works rather as if we used `whus' instead of `how'   13	 Change	utterance ordinals to free modifiers
for parallelism	with `what/that, where/	there')	in favor of 14	 Allow only one	NAhE before tense
a more latinate	- but unsystematic - assortment	of words.   15	 *ANNULLED*
If anything, Idists tended towards a more Eurocentric (or   16	 *ANNULLED*
Francocentric) view than Esperantists did.  Ido's affix	    17	 Allow forethought JOIKs
system,	however, attempted to be more like Loglan/Lojban.   18	 Allow BU to suffix any	word to	produce	a BY
They took the view that	predicates did not have	intrinsic   19	 Remove	MEX relations
parts of speech; thus any conversion of	meaning	through	the
use of affixes should be `reversible'.	Thus, if `marteli'			     Change 1
is `to hammer',	then `martelo' must mean an act	of
hammering, not (as in Esperanto) `a hammer'; or, if	    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  Currently, logical connection of
`martelo' means	`a hammer', then `marteli' must	mean `to be   operands in the MEX grammar is allowed using EKs.
a hammer'.  One	result of this is a somewhat larger	      However, JOIKs are not usable in MEX.
assortment of affixes than Esperanto possesses,	(for

							   62


PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow	JOIKs as well as EKs on	the same    RATIONALE:	Make this form more consistent with the	logical
  grammatical level.					      connectives like "na.anai", where	the marker for the left
							      connectand precedes the connector.
RATIONALE:
1) Operands are	the formal analogues of	sumti, and this				     Change 4
  change makes operand connection formally identical to
  sumti	connection, so that it can be learned by analogy    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  MEX ranges are handled with GAhO
  without a special exception.				      operators	attached to mathematical parentheses.
2) Ranges ("from 3 to 10") can be easily expressed using    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Remove this capability.
  selma'o BIhI and GAhO, which are part	of the JOIK system.
  Currently, these can only be expressed by a messy	    RATIONALE:	See Change 1.  This capability was never
  variation on left and	right parentheses, which doesn't      correctly	specified, because only	one expression can
  work well because no separator is defined between the	      appear between parentheses, whereas ranges require two
  upper	and the	lower bound.				      expressions inherently.

			 Change	2						     Change 5

CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  Only	one EK_KE construction is allowed   CURRENT LANGUAGE:  It is possible to specify either	NA or
  after	a MEX operand.	You cannot say "pa .a ke ri .e ci     SE before	selma'o	A, JA, GIhA, or	ZIhA, but they cannot
  ke'e .a ke vo	.e mu" to mean "1 or (2	and 3) or (3 and      both be specified	unless -NAI follows.
  4)".							    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Remove this restriction.
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow	more than one consecutive EK_KE
  construct.						    RATIONALE:	The intent of a	previous change	just before the
							      baseline was to allow both NA and	SE (in that order) in
RATIONALE:						      all cases, not just those	where -NAI followed.  This
1) same	as 1) for Change 1.				      ability was accidentally omitted,	so this	is a "bug fix".
2) This	change amounts to changing an "operand_C" to an
  "operand_B".	The baselined version was created by				     Change 6
  incorrectly copying existing text from the pre-baseline
  grammar, so this change is a "bug fix".		    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  selma'o JOI can be converted with SE and
							      negated with NAI like the	logical	connectives, but the
			 Change	3			      closely related selma'o BIhI cannot.
							    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow conversion and negation of BIhI.
CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  In expressing intervals with	explicit
  end-markers, the order is BIhI GAhO GAhO, where the first RATIONALE:	Converted ranges allow "se bi'o" which means
  GAhO is the left endpoint and	the second one is the right   "to...from..." and negated ranges	allow "bi'inai"	which
  endpoint.						      means "not between".
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Put the first	GAhO before the	BIhI
										     Change 7

							    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  KI can be used either on	an origin
							      specifier	or on a	time and/or space tense	to reset the
							      scope or position	of the origin.	KI by itself is
							      ungrammatical.
							    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow KI by itself.  This	returns	the
							      origin to	the physical here and now.  Also allow KI after
							      BAI to set a default aspect value; "BAI KI sumti"	sets
							      the BAI aspect to	the sumti, and "BAI KI KU" resets the
							      aspect to	its default.

							    RATIONALE:	This capability	existed	in the pre-baseline
							      grammar, and was omitted in error	during the tense
							      redesign.

										Change 8 *ANNULLED*

										     Change 9

							    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  GIhEK_KE	constructs have	lower priority
							      than basic GIhEKs.

							   63


PROPOSED CHANGE:  Place	GIhEK_KE constructs at the highest			     Change 12
  priority among GIhEKs.
							    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  An initial FAhA cannot be followed by
RATIONALE:  This is the	scheme used by sumti and operand      space offsets, but only by a space interval (or by
  connection, where EK has the lowest priority (and is	      nothing at all).	Analogously for	a ZI in	the time
  left-binding), EK_BO has medium priority (and	is right-     system.
  binding), and	EK_KE has highest priority (and	is again    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow FAhA followed by space-time-offsets
  left-binding).  During the split between Institute Loglan   and ZI followed by time offsets.
  and Lojban, sumti were changed to make EK_KE highest
  priority (and	operands followed when MEX was redesigned)  RATIONALE:	This allows the	currently ungrammatical
  but bridi-tails were not changed.			      "vizu'a" in the sense of "to the left of a nearby	point".
							      "zu'avi" on the other hand means "a point	not far	to the
			 Change	10			      left of here".  This distinction is subtle, but real.
							      The change to the	time system follows by symmetry,
CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  FAhO	can appear in two possible places,    although initial ZI is probably not of much use, since it
  at the end of	text (including	TO-TOI parenthesized text),   means "a short/medium/long time distance from now"
  and just before the closing TUhU of a	TUhE-TUhU very long   without specifying either	past or	future.
  scope	construct.
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Disallow FAhO	before TUhU.					     Change 13

RATIONALE:  FAhO was intended to signal	the end	of text	    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  Utterance ordinals using	MAI are
  unambiguously, but a parser problem forced it	to be	      currently	considered indicators, and can appear after any
  allowed in an	additional context.  That problem no longer   word and get absorbed.
  exists.						    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Shift MAI	constructs to the more
							      restrictive free-modifier	grammar.
			 Change	11
							    RATIONALE:	The absorber routines in the parsing program
CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  The grouping	of PU_mods means that a	      which need to remove non-initial utterance ordinals
  free modifier	at the end of a	PU_mod applies to the whole   before YACC sees them have to read an arbitrary number of
  PU_mod rather	than just to the tense_modal at	the end,      PA or BY tokens, determine whether the next token	is a
  whereas free modifiers embedded within the PU_mod refer     MAI, and if so absorb, but if not	push back all the PA/BY
  only to the tense_modals they	follow.	 So "puxipa je	      stuff. This requires unbounded pushback capability in the
  puxire", which should	mean "past-time	t1 or past-time-t2"   absorber,	which is to be avoided.
  means	"(past-time t1 or some-past-time)-sub-2".  As a
  result, there	would be no way	to subscript a conjoint	      This change was proposed earlier but never consummated.
  tense, but it	is not clear what such subscripts would	      A	side effect of this change is that lexer_A would flag
  mean anyhow.						      utterance	ordinals only, and the regular indicators (UI,
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Move the free	modifier to tense_modal.      CAI, Y) no longer	need lexer flagging.  Another side
							      effect is	that FUhO, DAhO, and POhA can be treated as
RATIONALE:  See	CURRENT	LANGUAGE section.		      indicators (and PEhA as a	forethought indicator like
							      BAhE) rather than	with special magic.

										     Change 14

							    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  A tense can be prefixed with arbitrary
							      numbers of NAhE tokens.
							    PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow only one NAhE token	at most.

							    RATIONALE:	The compounder needs to	read past a potentially
							      infinite number of NAhEs to decide whether what follows
							      is a selbri (which is not	compounded) or a tense.	 If
							      this change is made, the compounder will always be able
							      to decide	within 2 tokens	whether	it has a compound or
							      not.  If multiple	NAhEs are really needed, the tense can
							      be expanded to use the predicate grammar instead.

									       Change 15: *ANNULLED*

									       Change 16: *ANNULLED*


							   64


			 Change	17			    CURRENT LANGUAGE:  There is	a special category of
							      predicates called	"MEX relations"	which have special
CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  Logical operators can be represented	in    grammar; they represent mathematical relations.
  either forethought or	afterthought (except for tenses	and PROPOSED CHANGE:  Assimilate MEX relations to ordinary
  abstractors),	as can aspectual (BAI) operators, but the     predicates.
  non-logical operators	of JOI and BIhI	have no	forethought
  versions.						    RATIONALE:	MEX relations as defined cannot	be logically
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow	"[SE] JOI GI [NAI]" and	"[SE] BIhI    connected	and overlap ordinary predicates.  The only MEX
  GI [NAI]" as new kinds of forethought	connectives,	      relation cmavo defensible	on Zipfean grounds is "du",
  analogous to the existing "stag GI [NAI]" (see the E-	      which is moved to	selma'o	GOhA.
  BNF grammar).	 Forethought would still be disallowed in
  tanru	(no GUhEK equivalent of	this) and where	the GAhO
  endpoint markers are required.

RATIONALE:  Completeness, plus the fact	that natural	      Letters, Comments, and Responses - Vincent Burch,	John
  languages such as English usually represent JOIKs with	       Hodges, Bernard Golden, David Morrow
  forethought constructs ("the union of...and...",
  "from...to...", etc.)	 Institute Loglan had only one			    A Letter from Vincent Burch
  JOIK,	"ze" (the equivalent of	"joi"),	so a forethought		   (italicized comments	by Bob)
  construction was not felt necessary.	The far	more
  elaborate JOIKs of Lojban can	easily be extended to	    ...	First, a couple	of lexical questions:
  forethought.
							    gurni - does this mean grain (texture) or grain (cereal)?
			 Change	18			      [cereal]
							    fepni - does the last place, "from..." indicate the	major
CURRENT	LANGUAGE:  "bu", selma'o BU, has a very	restricted  unit this is a division of,	or the issuing authority?
  use.	It can only appear after bare vowels (selma'o A, I,   [the latter]
  and Y) to create the lerfu for those vowels.
PROPOSED CHANGE:  Allow	"bu" after any (lexable) word	    A few suggestions about place structures:
  whatever, to create something	equivalent to selma'o BY.   [These are open to comments	from the community, and	will be
  In addition, change the standard lerfu for "y" from "ybu" considered along with others as part of the	ongoing	place
  to "y'ybu".  Remove the ZAI...FOI construct for change of structure review.]
  character set, as well as the	TEI construct.	LAU is kept
  and extended to hold all lerfu prefixes, including "zai"  cevni - there should be another place to indicate purview
  to specify character set and "tau" to	force a	next-lerfu  ("of...").	This eliminates	an inadvertent bias toward
  shift.						    monotheism,	and allows anthropologists, or anyone else, to
     Composite symbols become represented by TEI letteral   easily discuss deities such	as Thor, the Norse god of
  ... FOI, which has the grammar of a single letteral.	    thunder.

RATIONALE:  This allows	the creation of	a bunch	of new	    cange, farm	and purdi, garden - need another place for
  lerfu.  The Latin and	Greek alphabets	can be more readily crop(s) grown.
  accommodated;	for example, "q" could have "kybu" as its
  lerfu.  lerfu	for the	digits become possible;	for example zekri - should insert "against..." to indicate the victim.
  "pabu" would be the digit 1, as opposed to the number	1.  The	concept	that all crimes	are crimes against the state is
  "ybu"	causes problems	with the parser, as the	"y" is	    a relatively recent	development of debatable merit.	 (I'm
  absorbed into	the preceding token (as	a hesitation noise) enough of an anarchist to think that "crime	against	the
  and is not available to be compounded	with "bu".  "y'ybu" state" comes close to being	an oxymoron.)
  uses the lerfu "y'y" (alone representing "'")	instead.
     The ZAI...FOI construct is	meant to specify new	    vindu - should add a place for source ("from...") so that,
  character sets, but requires spelling	out the	name of	the for	example, le vindu fe le	mledi, fungicide, can be
  character set	in lerfu, for example "zai dy ebu vy abu ny distinguished from le vindu	fi le mledi, mycotoxin.	 As a
  abu gy abu ry	ibu foi" to enable Devanagari mode.  This   linguistic faulpelz, I'd like to know if there's a clear
  is ugly.  Using the new flexibility of "bu", we can say   way	to condense those phrases, and others like them, into
  "zai .devanagar. bu" instead.	 (The pauses are needed	in  lujvo.
  names	for morphological reasons.)			      [I assume, "...and to distinguish	them".	After all mledi
							    vindu covers them both, but	ambiguously.  How about:  mledi
			 Change	19			    krasi vindu	to explicitly give the latter.	"from
							    source/origin" has a lexeme	BAI and	is probably not	needed
							    in the place structure, making the simpler tanru more clear
							    to cover 'fungicide'.]

							   65


							      other two	concepts.  Not all concepts need to be
"Surprise" is a	good keyword for .ue, but when you write      expressed	in only	two terms.]
the dictionary,	you should be sure to include the
translation of .ue as "even...".  My statement of mock	    2)	 Similarly, there is no	gismu for forest.  A ricygri is
mock-humility, "sogar ich kann Fehler machen," becomes mi     a	copse, or stand, or clump.  Besides, a forest is more
.ue pu'i srera.						      than a group of trees; it's an entire ecological
							      community	(or megacommunity?).  A	separate gismu is
  [You are NOT expressing surprise - as	you said it is mock   needed to	describe things	as sylvan or woodland, or to
humility.  Don't 'lie' with attitudinals; if you do, they     make lujvo for forestry, woodcraft, or deforestation.
don't serve their proper purpose.  Another culture is	      [Depending on your purpose, you could therefore use the
perfectly justified at treating	them literally.	 How about    most non-specific	term:  tricu foldi, or for your
.o'anai	.ianai.	 It is longer but clear.]		      specific uses tricu ciste, or even tricu cecmu.  There
							      needn't be one Lojban term for all uses of an English
Now, I have a few suggestions for added	cmavo:		      term.  Note that I do not	make lujvo at this point.  I
							      would analyze the	tanru much more	careful	before doing
1)   "... enough to ...", a modal indicating sufficiency or   so.]
  potential, whether or	not realized.
  [I need an example to	tell your exact	intent,	but I think 3)	 How does one say galaxy or galactic?  A targri	is a
  the existing set will	manage it.]			      star cluster, which is a far cry from the	huge, orbiting
							      system that is a galaxy.	Again, there are concepts like
2)   "... such that .../ ... so	that .../ ... to the point    intra-, trans-, and inter-, and extragalactic.
  of ...", a modal indicating actual result.  This could be   [banli tarci ciste, perhaps.  The	compounds are used
  used to translate such tings as "bored to tears," "freeze   inexactly	in English, by the way,	so you have to be
  to death," or	Carsonesque "it's so hot, that ..."	      careful.	But they are not everyday words	and could
  [ja'e]						      easily be	4 or 5 part compounds using kensa where
							      needed.]
3)   "... by ...", a modal to identify the point of
  attachment; used to translate	such phrases as	"lead by
  the nose," "hang by fingernails."
  [sedi'o]

4)   "Heading/Title:", a tag to	identify the following text
  as a heading or title	to the body of text following it.
  The end of the title would be	marked by ni'o or any of
  the mo'o series.  As would hopefully be obvious in use, a
  title	before nomo'o applies to entire	body of	text in
  question.  Likewise before pamo'o unless there is already
  a title that it becomes a subheading under.  Subsequent
  headings apply only to designated sections of	text.  This
  cmavo	would share some of the	function of ni'o, but
  apparently require its own lexeme.

  [This	would require a	grammar	change,	and isn't needed.
  Titles and Headings are metalinguistic, and should be
  identified as	such.  Our published examples have shown a
  couple of ways to do this.]

Now for	some gaps I see	in the gismu list:
1)   When I read your report on	Logfest	'90, I was amused
  by a collective blind	spot.  You make	sure all the Terran
  continents are named,	but you	don't notice the absence of
  an adequate generic term.  I'm not satisfied with bady-
  daplu	(.a'unai!), and	it couldn't be used in lujvo for
  concepts like	transcontinental or intercontinental.
  [.a'unai is intended to be repulsion as contrary to
  interest (negative-interest),	and seems strange in this
  context, but who knows.  I would prefer using	tumla to
  daplu, but otherwise see nothing wrong with your lujvo,
  which	can in turn be used with ragve or jbini	to get the

							   66


4)   Going the other way on the	size scale, the	difference  species which are at least ostensively monogamous, like
  between a village and	a town (cmata'u) is qualitative	    Homo sapiens.
  more than quantitative.  I can't come	up with	a lot of    [I think xadba mapti fits your definition more clearly.
  lujvo, but it	still bothers me.			    Look at the	place structures of your underlying gismu,
  [You are right - the difference is qualitative.  Define   especially the final one that determines the tanru place
  the quality and you have your	tanru.	How about cange	    structure.]
  zarci	tcadu?]
							    cu'arselgre	(cuxna se pagre).  "x1 filters x2, stopping x3
5)   I see no way to discuss expectation in a veridical	(as and	passing	x4".  The "selective barrier" can be a
  opposed to attitudinal) context, whether you mean	    construct of paper and metal for filtering oil, gas, or
  astrology, meteorology, Wellsian futurology, scientific   air, or a piece of tinted glass for	filtering light, or an
  knowledge such as "I expect a	dropped	object to fall," or assembly of	components for filtering an electromagnetic
  world	view such as "I	expect children	to respect their    signal, an algorithm for filtering input, or a mind-set for
  elders."  lujvo include disappoint = expectation-fail,    filtering perceptions.
  optimist = good-expector, and	pessimist = bad-expector
  (in contrast to xagnalkri, cynic = good-doubter).	    My first choice for	keywords for tanru and lujvo is	'word
  [krici (and senpi) are key gismu, with expectation	    cluster' and 'affix	cluster'; my second choice is 'modified
  referring to a belief	about the future, about	fate, or    phrase' and	'modified word'.
  about	fortune	(balvi,	dimna, cunso), depending on degree,   [At least	one person expressed a preference.  Does anyone
  intent and scope]					    else care?]

6)   In	scientific contexts, it	would be very helpful to    I like the overall setup of	kinship	terms, including the
  have a gismu for taxon.  No, that is not the particle	    proposed generics.	The '988 panzi is basically included in
  that transmits government extortion; it is a		    jbena (if both are viewed tense-free).  Inverting and
  branch/level/division	in a system of hierarchical	    expanding panzi would make it nicely symmetrical to	jbena.
  organization.	 Taxonomy would	be taxon-system-study),	    I think "sire" and "dam" would also	be welcome additions.
  depending on context,	but the	primary	use would be to	de-
  signate taxonomic levels.  Thus, Felideae and	Lamiaceae   A good translation of "just	married" might be puzize'u
  are both examples of family-taxon.  This avoids the	    speni.
  confusion of trying to back-count the	steps from jutsi to   [I'll leave this one for a longer	discussion of tenses.
  kingdom.						    Maybe next issue.]
  [jutsi conveys the series of species within a	taxonomic
  hierarchy, with klesi	used in	a less rigorous	context.]   The	attitudinals and discursives are both in the UI	lexeme.
							    Does this mean that	the attitudinals can be	compounded with
I could	go on, but it's	late.  Ni'o, . . .		    the	discursives, or	just with each other?
							      [No rules	against	it - the line between the two is rather
A few of my lujvo that I'm proudest of:			    arbitrary, but beware of possible misinterpretations.]

kaurjutsi (kampu jutsi).  The place structure is "x1 is	the Would it be	worth adding another cmavo to have a discursive
common name used by x2 for the life-form called	x3	    for	"ironically"?  If the answer to	both of	these last
(Linnaean binomial) by author x4."  I expect this lujvo	    questions is yes, then .uecu'i would combine with
would see more use in classrooms and laboratories than the  "ironically" to translate the German discursive
original gismu.	 With ki'a and the vo'a	series,	it's easy   "ausgerechnet."
to ask questions like "what's the common name for this?" or   [I don't know the	German word, but irony is simply
"who calls it that?" or	"what's	the scientific name for	    expressed with .ianai, in an otherwise positive claim.]
tapeworm?"  An example of usage	is: le ricpurdi	srasu ku
kaurjutsi le merko lai Dactylis	glomeratus la lineius i	le  I propose a	new procedure with the names and acronyms of
jipcirjma ku kaurjutsi le brito	vo'i (Orchardgrass is the   nations and	other groups.  Each word of the	name should be
American common	name of	D. glomeratus [L.].  The Brits call examined to	see if it is intrinsically a name, or if it's
it cocksfoot.)						    "just a word."  (Yes, I know that this can be an arbitrary
"le ricpurdi srasu ku" should be "lu ricpurdi srasu li'u"   distinction.)  The names should be rendered	phonetically
or "la ricpurdi	srasu ku", since it's a	name.  Also, since  into the best-fit cmene, and the words should be translated
you are	dealing	with names, rather than	with the	    and	then cmenified.	 Acronyms should either	be the result
classification system, cmene should be the underlying	    of this process, or	a simple rendition of the acronym from
gismu."							    the	source language.  Thus,	we might discuss la
							    ge'oSySySyRur or its Lojbanic equivalent, but not la
relxadba (re xadba).  "x1 is the mate of x2".  The mnemonic .ubuSySyRyr.  Hopefully, we	can be more consistent (with
is "pair-half".	 I originally coined it	with gloves, socks, whatever convention) than English speakers.	 USSR is a
and shoes in mind, but it can easily be	extended to animal  translated acronym,	but KGB	is the acronym of the Russian
							    phrase that	means "Committee for State Security."  If we're

							   67


going to keep the original acronym, we might as	well	    tongue ideal.  Machine translation FROM Lojban TO natural
pronounce it kah-geh-beh, and leave it in Cyrillic.	    languages would seem much more practical than any other
							    kind of machine translation.  It seems to me the project
Of course, that	task requires more lujvo, to translate the  most likely	to give	tangible results within	a small	number
various	governmental concepts.	Republic is easy, that's    of years.  It is a project that can	be worked on by	a small
ka'irtru (krati	turni).	 I've put some effort into coining  number of widely scattered people.	It is a	project	that
lujvo for the rest, but	it's a challenge to find metaphors  may	be "academically respectable", suitable	for theses and
which accurately convey	the essence of the terms and remain grants.  It	can be done by people who are not terribly
culturally neutral.  Confederacy, for example, is listed in fluent in anything but their native	tongue.	 Intermediate
most dictionaries as synonymous	with federation.  The	    results, software that gives bad but decipherable
difference is more or less clearly understood, however,	by  translations, can still be useful as research and as
speakers - especially those who	take a dim view	of central  teaching tools.  Altogether, in my opinion,	enough to give
authority.						    a "reason for existence", or a practical focus, to la
[The terms are pretty much synonymous, unless you have a    lojbangirz.	if efforts toward a mass movement fizzle.
context	where one was chosen and acquired secondary
connotations, as in the	U.S. Civil War.]		    Unfortunately, I am	not a computer-science person, and I
							    have concluded that	I am not likely	to become one.	My
							    motivation is too weak for the work	that would involve,
		   ---------------------		    given my starting point.  Hence I cannot contribute
[John Hodges takes a different perspective on people's	    personally to a machine-translation	effort.	 I am starting
reasons	for learning Loglan/Lojban (his	reasons	apply	    out	(once more on a	new direction, toward graduate study of
regardless of the language name).  His arguments are sound  philosophy,	in logic and ethics.  My interest in Lojban
though pessimistic; I feel a little optimism is	necessary   will be in its potential as	a language for thinking	clearly
for anyone to choose to	learn an artificial language	    in.	(Pardon	my English.)
expecting practical benefit.  Nora points out that John	and
I both have omitted the	reason most people who have	    The	class I	taught never got to the	"logical connectors",
actually knuckled down and started learning the	language -  and, or, xor, not, if, because, etc....  I recall you
as a linguistic	toy, a personal	mind expander.	This minor, expressing a hope that a parser that could look ahead more
totally	impractical aspect may be the spark to get a	    than one token might allow a simplification	of Lojban's
'movement' started once	we have	a larger speaker-base.	    system of logical connectors.  Here	also, then, the
							    contributions of CS	people are of high value.
	     from John Hodges, on 'Why Lojban'
							    Lojban's value as a	teaching vehicle for Logic, or (perhaps
I've pondered the subject of "Why Lojban?"  We need to	    more likely) for linguistics, are potentially reasons for
provide	answers	on an individual level,	"Why should I study learning Lojban, for those who already wish	to learn logic
Lojban now?"  Lojban may have many uses, but not all of	    or linguistics.  Someone would have	to write a textbook on
them can be used as reasons for	an individual to learn it.  logic or linguistics that used Lojban as such a vehicle.
E.g. John Cowan's suggestion that L. may be valuable in	    Who	knows, I might do that someday.	 I'll keep it in mind.
linguistic research as a case study in the process of
creolization.  (Though,	since creolization is an example of I have thought of the appeal of exclusivity	and secrecy;
language evolution, it would seem to me	for that purpose    given that so few people know this language, hobbyists
one would want an evolved language, not	a constructed one.) might use it for private speech or writing.	 Diaries and
[Bob:  If you have fluent speakers, one	would expect the    intimate conversation... but is that enough	motivation for
processes of language evolution	to be the same.]  If there  learning a language, even one relatively easy to learn?
were a sizeable	L-speaking community, a	researcher might    Codes and ciphers would serve those	purposes with less
become interested.  But	I doubt	if any individual would	    effort.  I have thought of calling L. "Dragontongue",
learn Lojban in	order to improve the opportunities for lin- recalling my Dad's comment that Lojban looked like nothing
guistic	research into creolization.			    human.  Fantasy fans might be attracted to it because of
							    that.  Again, I doubt this motivation is strong enough.
The original "basic three reasons" still hold, in varying
amounts	for different people.  The hope	that those who	    I have written on the global-common-tongue idea; given
think in Lojban	will think "better" in some measurable way, start-up-costs, increasing returns to scale, and inertia of
more flexibly and/or more logically, is	the one	that will   established	standards, I think our only hope is through
provide	my own motivation.  Potential usefulness as a com-  machine translation.  AFTER	a dramatically successful test
puter language may motivate Computer Science researchers.   of Sapir-Whorf, the	S-W angle may give us another selling
Potential as a Global Auxiliary	Language, a "common tongue" point.  Until MT or	SW materializes, I think Esperanto owns
to reduce language barriers, may interest some more.	    the	field, and even	they have a very uphill	fight.	I think
							    the	most-likely-future is for the largest natural languages
I have written before on the possible aid that the	    to grow and	consolidate.  In areas with a lot of small,
computer-science people	could give to the global-common-    fiercely loved ethnic or national languages, AND no	clearly

							   68


dominant existing common tongue, Esperanto will	have its      grammatical reference books.  For	example, Plena Analiza
appeal to the sensible minority.  Barring a sudden global     Gramatiko	has 436	numbered paragraphs describing the
attack of sanity, there	will be	no global common tongue.      language in detail, but that is a	minimum	figure for the
But given MT from L. to	the largest N natural languages, L.   number of	rules because within each paragraph are
could sweep the	field.					      sections and subsections with discussions	of doubtful
							      points and even exceptions not conforming	to the
							      published	Plena Gramatiko	(Complete Grammar).  Kalman
[Bob:  Following is a last, more scholarly examination of     Kalocsay3	describes the language in 288 paragraphs in
the question of	Esperanto and its '16 Rules', written by an   which, just as in	Plena Analiza Gramatiko, there are
expert in the History of Esperanto and International	      several sections and subsections.	 Does the figure 288
Languages.]						      signify simplification of	the grammatical	analysis of
							      Esperanto	or did Kalocsay	omit some rules?
	COUNTING THE GRAMMATICAL RULES OF ESPERANTO
		      Bernard Golden			      In a manual titled Gramatiko de Esperanto, Miroslav
							      Malovec4 requires	a little over 150 paragraphs and
16 rules - for propaganda purposes only			      sections to teach	the grammar, while Gaston Waringhien's
							      brochure gives a concise overview	of the essence of
  For more than	a century propagandists	have tediously and    Esperanto	grammar	in only	66 paragraphs5.
  repulsively disseminated the falsehood that the grammar
  of Esperanto consists	of only	sixteen	rules.	Plena	    The	Analytic School
  Analiza Gramatiko (Complete Analytical Grammar)1 comments
  more realistically on	the so-called "complete	Grammar	of    According	to the doctrine	of the Analytic	School (Analiza
  Esperanto" which is the title	of the sixteen rules in	the   Skolo) founded by	Luis Mimo, the ingenious Fundamental
  Fundamenta Krestomatio (Fundamental Chrestomathy): "To      set of sixteen rules is incomplete but can be completed
  want to limit	the fundamentals of Esperanto to that	      by application of	logic which determines the structure of
  scanty grammar and rely exclusively on it in order to	      the language up to the last detail6.  Mimo stresses the
  discuss the main questions of	our language would indeed     point that the sixteen Fundamental rules impress learners
  be an	unscientific and infantile attitude" (P. 18).  Such   favorable	but they in no way determine how the language
  a Lilliputian	grammar	is evidently insufficient for	      is to be used7.
  clarification	of how the language is used, and it must be
  completed by rules formulated	in other parts of the		 "Now, the rules not given by Zamenhof,	which are
  Fundamento (Foundation of Esperanto) or illustrated by	 immanent in the language, have	been given by the
  Zamenhof's own usage.						 Analytic School by means of a systematic analysis and
								 control with the help of the sole means of language
An unsuccessful	attempt	to estimate the	number of rules		 analysis, logic, which	in every case gives the	correct
								 answer; just one, because, already having been
  To the best of my knowledge the first	Esperantist who		 provided with its elements, nothing in	the artificial
  explored the question	of the number of grammatical rules	 language can be capricious" (p. 241).
  in Esperanto is Douglas B Gregor2.  He emphasizes that
  Zamenhof never said that Esperanto has only sixteen	      Mimo's Kompleta lernolibro de regula Esperanto (Complete
  rules.  It is	a question not of sixteen rules	but only      textbook of regular Esperanto) was published in 1973.  It
  sixteen descriptive items.  "They are	simple 16	      has a 31-lesson systematic grammar, but the presentation
  heterogeneous	traits of Esperanto which Zamenhof for some   is not complete since the	second part has	not yet	been
  reason wanted	to emphasize" (p. 8).  Consequently, Gregor   published.  Still	another	one of Mimo's books exists only
  gave up trying to ascertain the actual number	of rules in   in manuscript form: Esperanto por	la jaroj du mil
  Esperanto.						      (Esperanto for the year 2000).  Consequently, the	number
							      of rules which can arise from the	logical	analysis of the
  Is it	not possible to	compare	Esperanto, even	in an	      16-rule Fundamental grammar by adherents of the Analytic
  approximate manner, with ethnic languages in order to	      School is	not ascertainable.
  have an idea of the number of	its rules?  In the study
  referred to above, Gregor reports that he made an attempt Conclusion
  to compare Esperanto with an ethnic language when he
  compiled a list of 6000 examples illustrating	rules about   Even if an investigation were to be undertaken for the
  language usage in Italian, but he did	not succeed in	      purpose of listing each separate illustration of
  drawing conclusions about Esperanto.			      Esperanto	language usage (as Gregor did for the Italian
							      language), I have	the impression that no two grammarians
Grammars and grammatical compendia			      would induce more	or less	the same number	of rules.  The
							      only judicious answer to the question about the number of
  An idea of the magnitude of Esperanto	grammar	can be	      grammatical rules	in Esperanto is	that which Gregor gave
  acquired from	the number of paragraphs or sections in	      at the end of his	study:	"the grammatical rules of Es-

							   69


  peranto are much more	than sixteen; however, Esperanto			 le lojbo se ciska
  has fewer rules (i.e.	items to be memorized) than other
  languages."						    Let's start	with some comparative artificial linguistics:

Notes							    From Nick Nicholas:

1 KALOCSAY, K. and WRINGHIEN, G.  Plena	analiza	gramatiko   A text in VolapЃk, Esperanto, Ido, and Interglossa.	 To
de Esperanto.  4th edition  Rotterdam: Universala	    avoid the usual Pater Noster, I translated a Suzanne Vega
Esperanto-Asocio; 1980.	598 p.				    song.  I do	not guarantee my stylistics in VolapЃk and Ido.
							    [The VolapЃk was corrected with the	help of	Dean Gahlon,
2 GREGOR, Douglas B.  Kiom da reguloy vere havas Esperanto? and	the corrected text with	notes from both	are found in
Science	Revuo.	1982; 33 (1 [139]): 5-9.		    the	text below.]

3 KALOCSAY, K…l…man.  Rendszeres Eszperant• nyelvt…n.				  LANGUAGE (1987)
Budapest:  Tankonyvkiad•; 1966.	 243 p.
							    If language	were liquid
4 MALOVEC, Miroslav.  Gramatiko	de Esperanto.  Trebic	    it would be	rushing	in
(Czechoslovakia): 1988	102 p.				    Instead here we are
							    in a silence more eloquent
5 WARINGHIEN, G. A.B.C.	d'Esp‚ranto … l'usage de ceux qui   than any word could	ever be
aiment les lettres.  Paris: SAT-Amikaro;  1967	74 p.
							    Words are too solid
6 SULCO, Rikardo (= Richard Schulz).  Sur la vojoj de la    they don't move fast enough
Analiza	Skolo.	Paderborno:  Esperatno-centro;	1987  278   to catch the blur in the brain
p.							    that flies by
							    and	is gone
7 SULCO, Rikardo (= Richard Schulz).  Pledo por	unueca
lingvo.	  Paderborno:  Esperatno-centro;  1985	287 p.	    I'd	like to	meet you
							    in a timeless placeless place
							    somewhere out of context
		     from David	Morrow			    and	beyond all consequences

[Bob: David was	apparently a bit upset at comments from	    Let's go back to the building
Ralph Dumain on	the Lojban community, and at Donald	    on Little West Twelfth
Harlow's comments.]					    it is not far away
							    and	the river is there
I am not a "computer nerd" and I am not	much interested	in  and	the sun	and the	space
science	fiction.  I am a middle	aged blue collar worker, I  they are all laying	low
only own a word	processor, and the only	fiction	I read is   and	we'll sit in the silence
usually	Middle English or a few	types of modern	writing	    that comes rushing in
that are not speculative.  I suspect some Esperantists see  and	is gone
a real threat...
							    I won't use	words again
[With this, let	us end the discussion of Lojban	and	    they don't mean what I meant
Esperanto, at least until there	are more speakers of Lojban they don't say what	I said
(especially those who know Esperanto as	well), who can	    They're just the crust of the meaning
offer facts and	experiences, instead of	opinions.  Thus:    with realms	underneath
'n' (the end of	'Esperanto and Lojban discussion')]	    Never touched
							    Never stirred
							    Never even moved through





							   70


		    PљK	(VolapЃk, 1879)			    Mi sxatus renkonti vin
							    en sentempa	senloka	loko
If pЃk „binom-la flumlik1				    ie ekster cxirkauxteksto
„ininjogom-”v						    kaj	trans cxiuj sekvoj
Plaso is binobs
in stil2 pЃk”fikum					    Ni reiru al	la konstruajxo
ka evelo kanom v”d anik					    cxe	la Malgranda Okcidenta Dekdua
							    gxi	ne estas malproksime
V”ds binoms tu fimik					    kaj	la rivero estas	tie
no mufoms s„to vifo					    kaj	la suno	kaj la spaco
al beget”n nekleilati3 in zebЃm				    kusxas neefekte [not flashy]
kel ailoveflitom ed egolom				    kaj	ni sidos en la silento
							    kiu	enfluegas kaj foriras
Vipob oli kolk”m”n
in top netimik netopik					    Mi ne uzos vortojn denove
sem”po pl” zisi„m					    tiuj ne esprimas kion mi esprimis
„ movЃ sukads valik					    tiuj ne diras kion mi diris
							    Ili	estas nur la krusto de la signifo
Gegolobs”d in bumot					    kun	landegoj sube
len Balsetelik VesЃda SmasЃt				    neniam tusxitaj
no binom fagik						    neniam perturbitaj
e flum binom us						    neniam ecx tramovitaj
e sol e	spads
valik nepleidoms [are unproud]
ed osiedobs in stil2								LINGUO (Ido, 1907)
kel ainingonom ed egolom
							    Se linguo esus liquida
No odenugebob v”dis					    ol enfluegus
no maloms kelosi imalob					    Vice hik ni	estas
no pЃkoms kelosi ipЃkob					    en silento plu eloquenta
Binoms te lujal	si„ma					    kam	irgatempe povus	irga vorto
ko kin„ns diso
nevelo pebemuf”l					    vorti esas tro solida
nevelo pemuf”l						    oli	ne movas sat rapide
nevelo s„go pedugol”l					    kapti la desdistintajo en la cerbero
							    qua	preterflugas e foriras
1Nick: flumlik - I had vatik, wet [watery].  The original
is liquid.						    Mi amus te renkontar
2Dean: Your 'neb”set' [here] seems to be a noun	form of	    in sentempa	senloka	loko
neb”sik='silence'. My  dictionary lists	'stil' as a noun    ulube exter	kuntexto
meaning	'silence'.					    e trans omna konsequi
3Dean: interesting formation for 'blur', by the	way!  Nick:
Lit. not-clear-thing. Cf. my Esp maldistintajxo.	    Ni retroirez ad la konstrukturo
							    che	Mikra Uesta Dekeduesma
							    ol ne esas dista
		 LINGVO	(Esperanto, 1887)		    e la rivero	esas ibe
							    e la suno e	la spaco
(An x means that the previous letter has a cap over it.)    omni jacas base
Se la lingvo estus likva				    e ni sidos en la silento
gxi enfluegus						    qua	enfluegas e foriras
Anstatauxe cxi tie ni estas
en silento pli elokventa				    Mi ne uzos vorti itere
ol iam povus ia	ajn vorto				    olti ne esprimas quon mi esprimis
							    olti ne diras quon mi diris
Vortoj tro solidas					    Oli	esas nur la krusto dil signifiko
ili ne movigxas	suficxe	rapide				    kun	landegi	sube
kapti la maldistintajxon en la cerbo			    Nultempe tusxita
kiu preterflugas kaj foriras				    nultempe perturbita
							    nultempe mem tramovita


							   71


Interglossa, ancestor of Glosa,	is interesting in that it   Ivan Derzhanski supplied a corresponding translation into
emulates English & Chinese in having an	isolative	    Intal:
structure, and jettisoning the parts-of-speech distinctions
endemic	to flexional/agglutinative lingos.  It is			       LINGUO (Intal, 1970)
essentially Basic English in Greek; there are about 10
verbs, qualified by 'amplifiers' ending	in -o.	Nouns are   Si le linguo esud likvid
made distinct from (presumably)	adverbs	by being prefixed   it vud influega
by a location preposition, a possessive, a numeral, or a    Vise to yen	nos
'general article' like all, some, or the default 'u'.	    in silentes	maks elokvent
							    kam	eni vort potud ever es
		U GLOSA	(Interglossa, 1943)
							    Le vortos es tro solid
Postulo	u Glosa	habe liquo;				    les	non mova sat rapid
Re forto kine in.					    por	kapta le nebulaj nel serber
Na habe	loco para vice re				    kel	preterfluga e davada
in no-Phono; Su	dicte major
de pan Verba u Chron.					    Mi volud vu	renkontra
							    in sintemp sinlok lok
Plu Verba habe stereo excesso.				    somlok ekstra kontekst
Mu no kine satio celero					    e ultra omni konsekvens
tendo u	Rapo de	no-Luce-re in Cerbera;
Su kine	tele in	Aero plus apo.				    An le Min Oksident Desduesmi
							    a le konstruktur let nos rivada
Mi volo	habe syn Tu					    non	es fern
in Topo	minus Topo plus	minus Chron,			    e le river es ta
extra plu syn Logo-re					    e le sun e le spas
plus tele pan Sequo.					    les	omnos yasa bas
							    e nos ve sida in le	silentes
Peti Na	kine verso a mi	Cameri				    kel	influega e davada
loco micro occidento Via mono du.
Re no habe tele						    Mi non ve uza vortos plus
plus u Potami habe loco	apo.				    les	non esprima ko mi esprimed
U Heli syn Volumo habe non-alto,			    les	non dira ko mi dired
plus na	post gene sedi in no_Phono;			    Es nur le krust del	sens
Su forto kine in plus apo.				    kun	landegos sube
							    Nultemp tokat
Mi no acte utilo plu Verba itero.			    Nultemp perturbat
Mu no dicte Re;	Mi pre dicte.				    Nultemp mem	tramovat
Mu no habe u Significo;	Mi pre date.
Mu eque	no major de Area de Significo1
syn plu	hypo mega Loco,					    Here is Bob's corresponding	translation for	Lojban.	 Not
zero tem ge acte sensitivo,				    only does it allow comparison with the other ALs, but this
zero tem ge micro mote,					    particular text shows off a	lot of features	about Lojban.
cleisto	zero tem ge kine trans.				    Bob	comments on the	translation, presents a	literal	English
							    equivalent,	and comments on	the effort and its implications
1Despite my criticisms:	 there are some	cute syntactic	    for	artificial languages.
features in this Lingo.	 Take my translation of	with realms
underneath: with plural	underneath big place.					  (Lojban, 1991)

							    1. The translation is not quite as literal as Nick's
							    appears to be (not being familiar with the other three
							    ALs).  I have tried	to maintain a sense of the style,
							    denotation,	and connotation, of the	words used.  However,
							    Lojban is NOT an Indo-European language, and certain things
							    must be rephrased in order to be both (unambiguously)
							    grammatical	and to capture the meaning correctly.
							    2. Lojban is less tolerant of metaphor than	other
							    languages, but does	allow analytic metaphors (where	the
							    predicate place structures are semantically	preserved in
							    the	combination).

							   72


3. Nick	describes the text as a	song.  I saw no	apparent    and	then is-past.
match in rhythm	and/or syllable	count between lines of the
English	and the	AL versions.  I	presume	therefore that the  I desire the event of meeting you
translation is in free verse and is not	intended to match   during no-when, at nowhere,
the music (which I don't know anyway).			    according-to-reference-frame none
							    in the aftermath of	all result-dooms.
mela'e lu bangu	li'u ni'o
							    (Suggestion!) We return (ourselves-elliptical) to the
loi bangu cu litki					      building
.inaja ri sutfle fi ti					    which is at	that called 'Little type-of West Twelfth-
.iku'i na go'i						      thing'.
.ili'i nunsma semau ro valsi				    Other-than far (it is - elliptical).
temau leka zanselsku					    The	river is at (it-elliptical).
							    The	sun and	the environment
.i loi valsi cu	duksligu				    are	neutrally-other-than observed (neither extreme of
.i ri na sutra co banzu					      observed/non-observed)
le mu'e	kavbu le besysutra				    We there-yonder sit	in-environment
poi sutfau						    this (mass of) silence which swift-flowingly-happens
gi'e ba	purci						    and	then is	past.

.i mi djica lenu penmi do				    (Intention!) I in-the-future-never use (of the mass	of)
ca noda	vi node						      Words.
ma'inai	rodi						    They (words) do-not	mean my	thing-meant
ba'o ro	jagdimna					    and	are-not	forms-of-expressing my things-expressed
							    and	are skins of the meaning, characterized	by
.i .e'u	mi'o xruti fi le dinju				    the	grand-territory	inside
pe vi la cmalu ke stici	gaimoi				    which never	is touched
.i na'e	darno						    and	never is stirred
.i le rirxe cu zvati					    and	never least-superlative	passed-through.
.i le solri .e le vanbi
cu no'e	se zgana							      ----------------------
.i mi'o	vu zutse va'o					    Now	a note/complaint/what have you which I think is	most
lei smaji poi sutflefau					    revealing of the nature and	'neutrality' of	the other
gi'e ba	purci						    languages.	In the translations of the last	verse,
							    specifically:
.i .ai mi banoroi pilno	loi valsi
.i ri na smuni lemi selsmu				    "I won't use words again
gi'e na	velsku lemi selsku				    they don't mean what I mean
gi'e pilka le smuni sekai				    they don't say what	I say ..."
le baltutra nenri
poi noroi se pencu					    Nick translated both occurrences of	English	words 'mean'
gi'e noroi se jicla					    and	'say' with the same counterpart	in each	of the other
gi'e noroi mecrai se pagre				    three languages.  But the English words do not denote the
							    same thing.	 When a	person says something, it is different
Following is a literal English translation of the Lojban:   from when words say	something (in Lojban terms, the	human
							    is the expresser x1	of cusku, while	the words are the
That represented by "Language".	New topic.		    medium of expression x4 of cusku).	Likewise, the "meaning"
							    of words is	semantically distinct from the "meaning
(The mass of) Language is liquid,			    intention" of one who might	use the	words.	This is
only if	it (language) fast-flows to here.		    intuitive to an English speaker, who knows the range of
But not-true, the latter.				    meaning of the words.
Abstract-experiencing-of event-of-silence which-is-more-
  than each (any) word,
more-in	the property of	ameliorative(good)-being-expressed.

(The mass of) Words are	excess-solid.
They (words) are not quick such-that sufficient
in the abstract-achievement of capturing the brain-quick-
  thing
which quickly-occurs

							   73


  If each of the other ALs use the same	word to	capture	    Lojbanist who gets by the initial hurdle of	unfamiliar
both senses of "mean" and "say", then I	assert that they    words and structures more rapidly acquires that added
are flawed and biased towards English and/or every other    competence that is considered 'knowing' a language.
language that blurs these distinctions.	 I suspect that
such blurring, if in other languages, will tend	to be only
in the culturally similar European ones.  If Esperanto,			       A Lojbanic Fairy	Tale
Ido, and VolapЃk all borrowed European roots along with				   by John Cowan
their complete semantic	baggage, then those languages are
going to be inherently less understandable to a	non-	    [The following appears to be a lot of text,	but it employs
European who does not share the	cultural background.	    the	repetition and simple syntax inherent to good fairy
  This is a particularly insidious kind	of bias	because, as tales.  Also, since	the tale should	be recognizable	to most
one Esperantist	has pointed out, it seems that both the	    Lojbanists,	it should be relatively	easy to	understand from
European and non-European are having 'the shared	    a word-for word translation	effort.	 I have	made it	still
experience' of acquiring the AL	they both learn.  But for   easier, by forcing line breaks at key grammatical
one learner, it	is predominantly a regularized,	simplified, boundaries.	 Give it a try;	turn to	the English translation
form of	their own language; for	the other, the subtle se-   later only if necessary.]
mantics	needed for poetry is not shared.  (This	criticism
applies	more obviously for BASIC English, since	people can
easily see the confusing semantic range	of the word-plus-		  la pexykerf. .e le ci	cribe vau
preposition combinations that make that	language work.)
  I do not claim that the difficulty is	insurmountable.	    ni'oni'o fu'e ka'u le ci prenu cribe cu se zdani
Certainly non-Europeans	have written poetry in Esperanto       tu'i le tricu
that was understood and	appreciated by Europeans, possibly  .i le je'a barda cribe po'u	la pafrib.
in a way that is not as	easily possible	if the European	had    goi ko'a	vau
to learn the native language of	the poet, which	has a much  .i le no'e barda cribe po'u	la mamrib.
heavier	cultural/connotative load.  I suspect that	       goi ko'e	vau
(European) speakers who	can converse in	Esperanto fluently  .i le to'e barda cribe po'u	la ve'arib.
with non-Europeans, and	who therefore are thinking in Es-      goi ko'i	vau
peranto	rather than translating	from their native language
as they	go, have largely bypassed this difficulty.	    ni'o ro le cribe cu	ponse pa lo citka kabri
							    .i le ko'a kabri cu	je'a barda
My points can be summarized as two:			    .i le ko'e kabri cu	no'e barda
  1. I agree with those	that criticize ALs implicitly as    .i le ko'i kabri cu	to'e barda
being languages	that people think they know after finishing
the textbook.						    ni'o ji'a ro le cribe cu ponse pa lo zutse stizu
  2. As	a corollary, it	is a disadvantage for an AL to be   .i le ko'a stizu cu	je'a barda
'much like' any	other single language in particular.  The   .i le ko'e stizu cu	no'e barda
speakers of that language have either a	benefit	or a	    .i le ko'i stizu cu	to'e barda
handicap, depending on how you look at it; they	have an
easier time learning subtle features of	the AL and a harder ni'o ji'a ro le cribe cu ponse pa lo sipna ckana
time recognizing the differences that MUST be present for   .i le ko'a ckana cu	je'a barda
it to be an effective intercultural communications tool.    .i le ko'e ckana cu	no'e barda
The former is an unfair	bias; the latter calls into	    .i le ko'i ckana cu	to'e barda
question whether the AL	is suitable as an IL.

Since I	lead the Lojban	effort,	I of course (biasedly?)
support	Lojban as overcoming these issues.  Lojban is just
as easy	to learn as other ALs with lots	of regularity and
simplification.	 But since the language	is tied	to a
predicate grammar strikingly different from any	other lan-
guage, a speaker translating anything but the simplest
statements must	significantly reformulate the expression
(as shown in the translation above) in order to	properly
express	it in Lojban.  The result is easily understood to
another	Lojban speaker,	and indeed in back-translation,	is
not too	difficult in English.  But a Lojbanist MUST think
clearly	about what s/he	is saying in order to even say the
sentence; those	who use	other ALs do not necessarily do	so.
Thus, I	think Lojban aids a learner in acquiring the
'different perspective'	of a second language, and a

							   74


ni'o le	cribe cu cikna					    .i ko'a catlu le vo'a stizu
   gi'e	tisna le kabri lei cilmo gurni			       gi'ebabo	cusku sepi'o le	ko'a je'a cladu	voksa
   mu'i	le nu citka le pamoi sanmi				  lu daxire pu zutse le	mi stizu li'u
.i ku'i	lei gurni cu dukse
   le ka glare kei le pu'u citka kei			    .i ko'e catlu le vo'a stizu
   seki'u le zu'o le cribe cu cadzu			       gi'ebabo	cusku sepi'o le	ko'e no'e cladu	voksa
.i melbi djedi							  lu dexire pu zutse le	mi stizu li'u

ni'o le	verba po'u la pexykerf.	goi ko'u		    .i ko'i catlu le vo'a stizu
   cu catlu le nenri be	le zdani			       gi'ebabo	cusku sepi'o le	ko'i to'e cladu	voksa
.i no prenu cu nenri						  lu dixire pu ba'e daspo zutse
   semu'i le nu	ko'u nenri cadzu				      le mi stizu li'u

ni'o ko'u zgana	le ci kabri				    .i ko'a catlu le vo'a ckana
.i ko'u	xagji						       gi'ebabo	cusku sepi'o le	ko'a je'a cladu	voksa
   semu'i le nu	jdice le nu citka lei gurni			  lu daxici pu sipna vreta le mi ckana li'u
.i pamai ko'u troci citka lei ko'a gurni
   .i ku'i ri dukse je'a glare
.i remai ko'u troci citka lei ko'e gurni
   .i ku'i ri dukse to'e glare
.i cimai ko'u troci citka lei ko'i gurni
   .i ri prane le ka glare
semu'i le zu'o ko'u citka pi ro	lei ko'i gurni

ni'o ko'u zgana	le ci stizu
.i ko'u	tatpi
   semu'i le nu	jdice le nu zutse
.i pamai ko'u troci zutse le ko'a stizu
   .i ku'i ri dukse je'a galtu
.i remai ko'u troci zutse le ko'e stizu
   .i ku'i ri dukse to'e galtu
.i cimai ko'u troci zutse le ko'i stizu
   .i ri prane le ka galtu
       semu'i le zu'o ko'u zutse le ko'i stizu
       seri'a le nu ri porpi

ni'o ko'u zgana	le ci ckana
.i ko'u	mu'erta'i
   semu'i le nu	jdice le nu sipna vreta
.i pamai ko'u troci vreta le ko'a ckana
   .i ku'i ri dukse je'a jdari
.i remai ko'u troci vreta le ko'e ckana
   .i ku'i ri dukse to'e jdari
.i cimai ko'u troci vreta le ko'i ckana
   .i ri prane le ka jdari
       semu'i le zu'o ko'u sipna

ni'o le	cribe cu xruti gi'e djica lei gurni

ni'o ko'a catlu	le vo'a	kabri
   gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'a je'a cladu voksa
      lu da pu citka piso'u lei	mi gurni li'u

.i ko'e	catlu le vo'a kabri
   gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'e no'e cladu voksa
      lu de pu citka piso'u lei	mi gurni li'u

.i ko'i	catlu le vo'a kabri
   gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'i to'e cladu voksa							       jbobliku
      lu di pu citka pi	ba'e ro	lei mi gurni li'u

							   75


.i ko'e	catlu le vo'a ckana					   A Letter From Sylvia	Rutiser	to T. Peter Park
   gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'e no'e cladu voksa	     [Translation, commentary, and parse diagram later in the
      lu dexici	pu sipna vreta le mi ckana li'u		    section.  This is the uncorrected letter which was actually
							    sent, and has some minor semantics errors, though it should
.i ko'i	catlu le vo'a ckana							be understandable.]
   gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'i to'e cladu voksa
      lu dixici	pu je ba'e ca sipna vreta		    di'o zoi .kuot. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax, VA	 22031 .kuot.
	  le mi	ckana li'u				    de'i la'e li so pi'e pa vau
							    coi	doi ti.pitr.
ni'o ri'a la'edi'u ko'u	cikna				    .i la bab. pu cpedu	lenu mi	cu spuda ledo xatra po le xriso
.i le cribe cu catlu ko'u				    nunsalci
   seki'u le nu	ko'u bajra cliva			    .i loi snime poi puza farlu	ku'o ca	runme
.i le cribe noroi ku'a ba viska	ko'u			    .i le solri	cu gusni ga'a mi
							    ni'o la bab. puzi te benji le nuzba	po'u lenu la .atlstan.
fa'o							    goi	ko'a pu	klama la iutas.	fu leko'a
							    karce mu'i lenu ko'a djica lenu tavla le lobypli sedi'o la
							    iutas.
							    ni'o mi ca troci lenu cilre	lo'i cmavo
							    .i .e'o ko fraxu mi	leni cizra gerna po mu'i la'edi'u
							    ni'o .e'o ledo tcima cu pluka
							    .i .e'o ko kanro
							    coi
							    la silvian.


									   A letter from Michael Helsem
							     [Translation, commentary, and parse diagram later in the
										     section.]

							    de'e fi la maiky'elsym. xatra de'i li pabiki'ofeiki'osono
							    .i coi do'opezi  .i	.e'a selmi'a minseldunda vau  .i
							    .u'use'i ri	mleca da poi mi	ke'a djica ku'o	ri'a lemi bazi
							    mextutra nunli'u  .i ni'o mi do ckire le selbei judri be la
							    .atlstan. no'u caze'evu ki'a  .i mi	ri ba xagdicra la'a pu
							    lemi vuzyseltei  .i	ni'o di'e cnino	ke mitfa'e lerpoi  .i
							    lu .ua vibjbi vau li'u zmadu lei mordrata leka plikakne
							    su'omei zo'ope'icu'i  .i to'u .a'o sarji balvi snada vau
							    mi'e maikl.


								    A la lojbangirz. Group Translation Project?

							      In 1982-1984, Jim	Carter wrote extensively in the	then-
							    version of Loglan (he claimed an hour a day).  Because the
							    language was ill-defined, he used several non-standard
							    usages, and	the arguments over these non-standard usages
							    were among the precipitating events	for the	political
							    squabble that effectively destroyed	the Institute (and
							    still haunts us today).
							      Before this happened, though, he wrote and published
							    several pieces in Loglan, including	at least two short
							    stories.  These stories were written in the	language, not
							    translated from English, although Jim did provide rough
							    translations into English.	The two	stories, "The Welding
							    Shop" and "Akira" are the most extensive writing ever in
							    Loglan.  As	original works,	they serve as a	starting point
							    for	a Loglan literature.
							      Jim has given us copyright release and permission	to
by Sylvia Rutiser					    retranslate	or update (or what have	you) his texts into the
							    current Lojban, and	to use them as the basis for teaching

							   76


materials and/or a reader.  We intend to do so.	 Or rather, tanru are literally	translated; many or most of these need
I would	like to	see you, the Lojban community, make this    to be re-invented or at least thought about.
effort.
  This is not a	trivial	job.  Some of Jim's variant	      Akira reeled in the fish to his inflatable boat.	It was
constructs were	not added to Lojban.  Jim tended to use	    fat, spotted, silvery, and delicious.  He put it in	his
vocabulary based on the	old Loglan vocabulary, which was    icebox.  The oven-like sun cooked his brown	skin, and he
studded	with gawdawful tanru.  Lojban, of course, has some  retired under the canopy.  But he suddenly looked up, for
40% more gismu and a richer grammar than the earlier Log-   something was making a line	of smoke through the sky, and
lan; hence its expressive power	is greater and the phrasing suddenly exploded with a flash and a clap of thunder.
should be changed.  Another difficulty factor is length.    Someone floated down on a parachute.  Akira	thought, "Maybe
The stories are	not short, running several typewritten	    the	pilot needs to be rescued."  He	threw up the kite-sail
pages, perhaps 170 and 90 paragraphs, respectively.	    into the wind and sailed toward him.  He thought, "This
  Until	the effort is completed, we are	asking everyone	to  will make a	great (bold) story when	I tell it.  My young
try their hand at this.	 Participate to	any extent you	    friends will love it."
choose.	 Translate a word, a sentence, or the entire
paragraph.  Even the most novice among you can reinvent	a
tanru or two.						    .akir. (he-5) turn-pull(s) the fish	to his-5 air-full boat.
  Send your contribution to us,	and we'll collate ideas	and It (the fish) is fat and round-marked and silver-like and
print the best result(s).  People who submit a full	      delicious.
paragraph translation will be given additional paragraphs   He-5 puts it (the fish) inside his-5 ice-box.
to work	on, and	we'll publish these results as well.	    The	oven-sun cooks his-5 brown skin	and therefore-
							      motivatedly recur-self-safe-puts (himself) under the
  Suggestions -	please provide an English equivalent for      shadow-producer.
whatever you submit so that reviewers know what	part of	the Short-time he-5 suddenly up-looks.
text you are expressing, and can check their (and your)	    Because-motivationally something makes a line which-is
understanding.	Make tanru or lujvo as you choose.  If you    smoke through the	sky, and suddenly explodes (which-is?)
don't know how to use rafsi in making lujvo use	the ex-	      shock-bright and a thunder/lightning-producer.
panded form of replacing the final vowel of each but the    Something-4	down-float-flies using-tool a fall-cloth.
last term with 'y', or even hyphenate the gismu	together so Said by .akir., who	thinks:	 Perhaps the flyer-driver
we know	you want a lujvo instead of a tanru.  (An example:    dangerous-without-makes needingly.
rilti-cadzu-bende -> riltycadzybende = marching-band).	    Said by narrator:  He-5 throws the flyer-sail at the breeze
  Feel free to comment and suggest other conventions.  This   and sail-goes towards it-4.
is an experiment and we	don't know the best ways for it	to  Said by him-5: It (the event-just-mentioned	= the danger-
work.							      without-making) will bravely be a	history	of-something-3
  The complete result will be assembled	into a story,	      by me.
checked	by Jim Carter to ensure	he is willing to have his     My young friends will long-time-be-fond-of
name on	the result, and	published as a whole.  All	      it-3.
contributors to	the final text will be noted for historical   Note:  Sylvia says that she is not sure that her
purposes.						    tanru/lujvo	are the	best, and was most dissatisfied	by the
  The first paragraph of the "Akira" story (which is a sci- metaphor for falling by parachute.	Feel free to suggest
ence fiction story of a	sort), previously offered to the    better ones.
computer mailing-list "lojban-list", will serve	as start-
off and	example.  The process of preparing the paragraph is   Here is Sylvia's text, as	submitted uneditted.  As
shown, to give you an idea of what to expect with later	    printed, it	has some semantic errors.  After wards,	Bob
paragraphs.  The Lojban	effort was by Sylvia Rutiser.	    discusses these errors, and	suggests corrections.  But the
Since only one person worked on	this effort, everyone is    text is grammatical, and should be readable	without	the
invited	to comment on the tanru	she chose, or to suggest    corrections, especially if you've read the intermediate
corrections.  Then go to work on the second paragraph,	    English above.
which follows thereafter.  Deadline for	publication
submittals is approximately 20 May 1991	(though	we'll	    la .akir. goi ko'u ca carcpu le finpe seka'a le ko'u
consider others	received later in preparing the	final	    varselclu bloti  .i	ra cu plana je cukselbarna je rijnyska
version).						    .i ko'u ca punji ri	le ko'u	lektanxe  .i pe'a le toknu
							    solri cu jukpa le ko'u bunre skapi po'a  .ije ko'u nitkla
  What we're providing:	 the first paragraph of	the Akira   le santa mu'i la'edi'u  .i ko'u ca catlu fe	le gapru mu'i
story, as translated into English in two styles.  The first le nu da ca	zbasu lo linje pe loi danmo ge'u zi'e noi ragve
is roughly identical to	Jim's original English translation, le tsani  .i da ca spoja sekai le ka carmi te gusni	gi'e
and is somewhat	colloquial.  The second	is an attempt to    lindi selrinka savru  .i de	ca masno bukfa'u  .i la	.akir
structurally convey Jim's original Loglan (with	necessary   cu ponse lu	lo vijyjatna ca	nitcu le nu se sidju li'u  .i
corrections) in	"Lojban-structured" English, the style in   ko'u ca lafti le falnu vi le brife gi'e fankla ru  .i ko'u
which we typically print "literal translations"	of Lojban.

							   77


cu pensi lu lo ca fasnu	ba virnu se lisri fi mi	 .i le'i mi sentence-figurative.  With toknu simsa solri (oven-like
citpendo bazu nelci ri li'u				    sun), the figurative markers would not be necessary.
							      Nora points out that tanru can be	both restrictive and
Now for	Sylvia's back-translation of her effort, with	    non-restrictive, and prefers an explicit relative clause
comments from Bob.  Bob	has left some questions	open for    instead of "le ko'u	bunre skapi".  The existing text could
further	suggestions and	improvements.  The analysis may	    be taken to	imply that the sun cooked Akira's brown	skin,
show that translation is neither a simple, nor an	    but	had no effect on the paler portions of his hide; this
absolutely certain process (but	it's a fun way to learn	the would be a restrictive interpretation: "le ko'u skapi poi
language).						    bunre" (it5's skin that is brown.  The more	plausible
							    interpretation is "le ko'u skapi noi bunre"	(it5's skin,
la .akir. goi ko'u ca carcpu le	finpe seka'a le	ko'u	    which incidentally is brown).  If nothing else, this
  varselclu bloti					    example shows how ambiguous	tanru are, and yet how easily
Akira (now called it5) now turn-pulls the fish (with	    they can be	diambiguated when necessary.
  destination it5's air-filled boat).

[Bob: I	don't much like	"turn-pulls"; if you don't know	    .ije ko'u nitkla le	santa mu'i la'edi'u
what it	means from context and experience, you'd be	    and	it5 under-comes	to the umbrella/shade because of (last
unlikely to guess.  Lojban has a gismu "jendu" that could     sentence).
be useful.  Also the need to use "seka'a" indicates that
"turn-pulls" has obviously got the wrong place structure.   Sylvia has translated "and"	as a logical connective	between
To make	my objection more obvious, here	are two	alternate   two	sentences.  But	given that a motivational "because"
sentences with different objects than a	fish:		    occurs later in the	English, it should probably be
							    reflected in the connective:
   Akira (now called it5) now turn-pulls the knob (with
     destination it5's air-filled boat).		       .isemu'ibo ko'u nitkla le santa
   Akira (now called it5) now turn-pulls the pier (with	       and-therefore-motivating	it5 under-comes	to the
     destination it5's air-filled boat).			 umbrella/shade.

These make sense with implication of a totally different    or even combine the	two sentences:
meaning	of "turn-pulls".  Perhaps muvdu	would be a useful
component of the tanru.					       .i le toknu simsa solri cu jukpa	le ko'u	bunre skapi
.i ra cu plana je cukselbarna je rijnyska			 semu'i	lenu ko'u nitkla le santa
The-recent-it is plump and round-marked	and silver-color.      The oven-like sun cooks of it5's	brown skin, motivating
								 the event of it5 under-comes to the umbrella/shade.
Since Akira has	been assigned to ko'u, ra can only refer to
the fish.  We need to think about what we want skari to	      Since the	original for the last sumti was	"canopy", a
mean.  Does "ti	skari" mean "This is a color", or "This	is  more exact tanru might be selctino drudi "shadowing-roof".
colored", or are these the same	thing?	A safe way would be Other possibilities?  "Under-comes"	is a bit more limited
the tanru "skari rijnysi'a" "colorishly	silver-like".  Any  than Jim's original	"recur-self-safe-puts (himself)" - the
other ideas?  The original had "delicious" as another	    recurrence and the safety are lost.	 Can someone do	better?
property of the	fish, but this should be easy for someone
to fix.							    .i ko'u ca catlu fe	le gapru mu'i le nu da ca zbasu	lo
							      linje pe loi danmo ge'u zi'e noi ragve le	tsani
.i ko'u	ca punji ri le ko'u lektanxe			    It5	now looks at the up-thing because of something1	now
It5 now	puts last-it at	it5's cold-box.			      makes a line related to smoke which-incidentally is
							      across the sky.
The English uses 'it' here, but	for clarity, I would use le
finpe instead of ri.  Akira probably put it inside, not	    The	fe is superfluous, as is the ge'u; the latter is
just "at" the bold-box,	but this may be	picky.	You could   reasonable though, in that elidable	terminators are	welcome
add the	word nenri to the end to be clear (at the cold-box  when they help break up a complex structure.
insides), or use lekseltanxe, putting the fish at the cold    We're in a narrative.  The ca on the bridi therefore
box-contents.						    means that story-time is the same as the previous sentence.
							    Thus Sylvia's sentence translates as "It5 at the same time
.i pe'a	le toknu solri cu jukpa	le ko'u	bunre skapi po'a    looks at ... which is just then making a line ..."
Figuratively (the oven sun is a	cooker of it5's	brown skin    Looking at the original, we can see that a bit is
  ) end	figurative.					    missing:

The whole sentence might be figurative,	or maybe just the     But he suddenly looked up, for something was making a
first tanru; I would take sunburn as a result of sun-		 line of smoke through the sky,	and suddenly exploded
cooking	skin.  Sylvia has marked it correctly for a whole-	 with a	flash and a clap of thunder.

							   78


  Short-time he-5 suddenly up-looks.			    The	"ca" again indicates simultaneity with the previous
  Because-motivationally something makes a line	which-is    sentence.  Jim's original: "Something down-float-flies
     smoke through the sky, and	suddenly explodes (which-   using-tool a fall-cloth." would be:
     is?) shock-bright and a thunder/lightning-producer.      .i de nitflevoi sepi'o lo	falbu'u

  "Suddenly" is	suksa.	Jim's original used "zi" (implying  Nora suggests "cloth-brake-fall":
"bazi")	where Sylvia used "ca".	 But one other things is      .i de bukyjabre farlu.
wrong.	Akira looks up because of the moving across the	sky .i la .akir	cu ponse lu lo vijyjatna ca nitcu le nu	se
and the	explosion - indeed, it was probably the	latter that   sidju li'u
caught his attention, and he later noticed the line of	    Akira now thinks "an airplane-captain now needs an event of
smoke and inferred the motion from this.  Sylvia has exiled   being assisted".
the explosion to a separate sentence that has no causal
connection to the looking up, and Akira	is looking up	    Sylvia has Akira making a bolder guess as to what was
because	of the smoke-line.  What she has said makes perfect flying before it exploded.	It may not have	been an
sense, but is not what the original said.		    airplane, and indeed, since	this is	a science fiction
  My attempt (making minimal effort - I	could probably do   story, I suspect it	isn't (I didn't	check).	 Jim's original
better,	but this is your project):			    tanru was "flyer-driver" or	volsazri".  Again, I think the
							    "ca" is unnecessary, and more Lojbanically unspecified in
   .izibo suksa	fa lenu	ko'u gapcatlu			    favor of "cu".  Need for assistance	is a rather unintense
   .imu'ibo da zbasu lo	danmo linji noi	ragve le tsani ku'o need for rescue, though technically	correct	(the faller
     gi'ebabo spoja sekai le ka	carmi te gusni gi'e lindi   needs assistance in	"continuing to live").	Perhaps	someone
     savru						    can	come up	with a better expression (consider "ckape").
   Shortly, is sudden, the event of it5's above-looking.
   This	is because of somethingx making	a smoke-line, which .i ko'u ca lafti le	falnu vi le brife gi'e fankla ru
     is	across the sky,	and-then exploding characterized by It5	now lifts the sail at the location of the breeze and
     intense-illumination and lightning-noise.		      sail goes	to earlier-it.

Note my	non-English phrasing of	the first part,	due to	    Another "ca" - a lot happening simultaneously in Sylvia's
"sudden" not normally being an English predicate.  Note	    story.  "de" or "le	farlu" are clearer than	the vague "ru",
also that "ku'o" that is required to terminate the noi	    which could	refer to a lot of things at this point.
relative clause.  Otherwise, the translation would read:      Sylvia has misunderstood Jim's description of the	means
							    of propoulsion.  It	is a "kite-sail" which Akira "throws
   This	is because of the event	of somethingx making a	    into the wind".  This sounds rather	exotic,	while Sylvia's
     smoke-line, which crosses the sky and-then	explodes    boat sounds	like an	ordinary sailboat.
     characterized by intense-illumination and lightning-     How about	something like:
     noise.
							       .i ko'u renro le	volfalnu seri'a	le nu kavbu le
The smoke-line did not explode.					 ca'erbi'e  .i fankla le farlu
							       It5 throws the flying-sail causing the state of catching
								 the pusher-breeze.  Sail-goer to the faller.
.i da ca spoja sekai le	ka carmi te gusni gi'e lindi
  selrinka savru					    .i ko'u cu pensi lu	lo ca fasnu ba virnu se	lisri fi mi  .i
Something1 now explodes	(with intense illumination) and	      le'i mi citpendo bazu nelci ri li'u
  lightning-caused type	of noise.			    it5	thinks "a now-event is going to	be a brave story-
							      subject told by me.  The set of my young-friends will for
In Sylvia's version, the sentences should probably be	      a	long time be fond of last-it."
joined with ".ije" to be logically correct, since "da" is
by definition a	logical	variable.  Pragmatically, what she  This is vaguer than	Jim's original:	"a now event" vs. "the
did was	OK, though - in	non-logical argument, a	listener    event-just-mentioned", which, following Akira's thoughts as
would understand that the "da" in both sentences is the	    quoted, is specifically "the rescue".  If you take the
same.  The "ca"	says that this is happening at the same	    quotes as literal thoughts,	"la'edi'u" is "the event-just-
time as	the previous sentence (i.e. when something makes a  mentioned".
line).	It is better left tenseless (the English "and now     I	also have a little trouble with	"a brave story-
..." would typically equate to "and then immediately").	    subject", though Jim did something similar to convey "bold
							    story"; if the story-subject is bold, it is	probably a
							    person - yet the story is described	as about the rescue,
.i de ca masno bukfa'u					    not	about either the rescuer or rescuee, either of whom
Something2 now slowly cloth-falls.			    could have been brave.  I suspect "banli" is better	than
							    "virnu" for	bold, or at least a compound of	the two
							    "vribanli",	and modifying "lisri" instead of "se lisri".

							   79


  "bazu" is not	"will for a long time",	but rather "will a  careful.  Other causal choices may be no better, and you
long time later".  I think Sylvia wanted "baze'u" "in the   may	want a non-causal to express Jim's intent by the
future during a	long interval".				    colloquial English.
  Sets do not normally perform actions or have feelings	    * Be careful of your 'somethings' in this passage;
like "being fond of".  Sylvia wants a mass "lei" instead of unfortunately Jim didn't.  In this particular case,	for
"le'i"							    example, either 1) use a different 'something' than
  The final "ri" unfortunately refers back to the set of    "something1" or "something2", 2) use the UI	cmavo that
friends, giving	us a set noted for self-love (truly unusual cancels anaphora (but this cancels the it5 assignment too),
in a set).  Jim's original assigned the	rescue to a pro-    3) correctly use .ije between sentences using the same
sumti somewhere	between	"di" or	"ko'i" (something3/it3),    referent of	something, 4) or assign	a specific "it"	instead
but we are in someone's	thoughts here, and I suspect	    of a "something".
anaphora are not in good order.	 (It also is unclear
whether	the friends are	fond of	the rescue or the story	    Finally, here is Bob's quarterly in-Lojban essay.  As
about the rescue in Jim's original.)  "The rescue" or "the  before, no translation is given; this is the 'prize' that
story" should be used here.				    is only for	people who dare.  (We'll look at and respond to
							    any	questions, responses, or translation attempts that you
  Sylvia's effort was remarkable, given	the complexity of   send us, but you have to try first.)  Bob is writing
the text and that she had little or no help; she did use    directly in	Lojban,	and trying to 'think in	the language'
the old	parser to check	her work.  We are not expecting	the rather than	express	ideas in English and translate them.
average	Lojbanist to do	this well on a first attempt.	    The	topic this issue turned	out to be more timely than Bob
Translation is non-trivial as an exercise in language use.  thought it would be	when he	came up	with the idea for it
Especially when	you try	to capture the style and sentence   several months ago.	 Enjoy!
complexity of the original, as Sylvia did.  Jim	did not	use
trivial	grammar	in his story.  When you	first write in	      ni'oni'o pucaki le prula'i ke xamoi masti	ku mi rirci
Lojban,	give it	your best shot,	but expect to make lots	of  zgana ja pensi le cmene po'u la. ku,EIT.   .i mi ca	cfari
errors.	 You'll	find yourself learning quickly.		    lenu pensi lo sidbo	noi binxo co mutce vajni roma'a	 .ije
							    mi pensi le	sidbo noi srana	la djim. braun.	noi mi sinma
  Now, feel free to comment on this text, or even use the   .ije mi ca djica lenu ci'arsku le sidbo fu la me <<lu ju'i
pieces Sylvia and Bob came up with along with your own	    lobypli li'u>>  .i le ki'a sidbo vau
ideas to come up with your own version of the paragraph.	 ni'o lu'e le sidbo ca glico jenai lojbo valsi
Useful comments	and a revised translation may appear in	    .isemu'ibo mi troci	co finti lo jbovla  .i .ei le jbovla
next issue.  Then brave	souls can try all or part of the    terfanva "zoi .gic.	hero .gic." goi	ko'a  .i kiku mi ca
following, which is the	second paragraph of the	story.	The ciska
first version again is colloquial English, and the second,    ni'o pu pamoi fa lezu'o mi sisku le gicyvla smuni	du'o le
Lojbanized-English, back-translated from the original old-  glico vlamarcku  .i	mi binxo lo jimpe be leza'i le valsi cu
Loglan.							    so'imei smuni  .i mi ca troci lenu cusku loi smuni gi'e
							    fanva ri la	lojban.	 .ibabo	mi ka'e	casnu leka la djim.
  The parachute	was floating in	the sea, but the pilot was  braun me ko'a pe'i	.i de'e	velsku lei smuni
nowhere	to be seen.  Akira thought, "Maybe he drowned".	 He
pulled the parachute into the stern of the boat, and he
discovered a harness containing	a radio	and a knife and	a
flashlight.  But nobody	was wearing it.	 He called, "Hey,
pilot!	Where are you?	Say something, because I don't see
you."  But nobody answered.
  New paragraph	medium-time-offset the fall-cloth floats to
the sea.  and in contrast the flyer-driver is-not-seen.
Said by	it5 (Akira):  mild-belief (perhaps) it2	past water-
breathed.  Said	by narrator:  it5 inside-pulls the fall-
cloth to the behind-part of the	boat.  It5 discovers
something1 which incidentally-is-a-joined-garment, one
which is joined	to a radio and a knife and a hand-light-
device.	 In contrast, no something2  garment-uses
something1 (the	harness).  Said	by it5:	 "Attention the
flyer-driver:  At where?  (Imperative) Cry out and there-
fore *motivationally I see you."  Said by narrator: In
contrast, no *something1 respondingly-talks.

Notes on some errors in	Jim's original:
* The motivational causal seems	like the wrong choice of
causal.	 Crying	out won't motivate the seeing.	But be

							   80


  ni'o pamai le	me ko'a	mormuprai goi ko'e selranmi gi'e    .i le to'e barda cribe po'u	la ve'arib. goi	ko'i vau
tsali je virnu ke cevni	joi nanmu  .i remai le gicvla cu    The	opposite-of-large-bear which-is	called Child-Bear is
smuni roda poi nanmu gi'e tarti	le simsa be ko'e	    assigned as	it3.
  (to  .iku'i la xeros.	cu ba'e	ninmu selranmi fi loi xelso
gi'e na'e me ko'a  .i le glibau	cu ponse le drata je kampu  "Once upon a time" the three bears lived in	a house	by the
bo krasi valsi poi smuni le ba'e ninmu poi me ko'a  .i la   trees, the biggest bear, Papa Bear,	who we'll call #1,  the
lojban.	ka'e pilno lo valsi pamei poi smuni le sidbo secau  medium-size	bear, Mama Bear, who we'll call	#2, and	the
.o'a leka smuni	le selcinse toi)			    smallest bear, Baby	Bear, who we'll	call #3.
  ni'o cimai .uinai le gicyvla cu smuni	so'i drata  .i
smuni roda poi vajni prenu to ji'a cficku rajraipre toi
zi'a poi tatmo'a zanmupli prenu	zi'a .oi poi nujdja klesi   ni'o ro le cribe cu	ponse pa lo citka kabri
.i le'i	smuni cu mutce vrici				    (New Para.)	Each of	the bears possesses one	of the eating
  ni'o do smuni	ma fau lenu do skicu de	sepi'o le gicyvla   cups.
po'u ko'a  .i cai na'eka'e jimpe le gicyvla  .i	mi ba'e	na  .i le ko'a kabri cu	je'a barda
xusra le nu la djim braun.				    It1's cup is indeed-large.
cu nujdja zo'o						    .i le ko'e kabri cu	no'e barda
  ni'o de'u mupli leka lezu'o fanva lo valsi cu	mutce nandu It2's cup is not-really-large.
.i mi cuxna pa smuni be	le gicyvla be'o	poi seldji  .i mi   .i le ko'i kabri cu	to'e barda
pilno le jbovla	poi velsku le selcu'a smuni		    It3's cup is opposite-of-large.
  ni'o mi jinvi	lenu le	vajni sidbo po'e ko'a cu si'o lo
prenu cu pijvri	tarti  .i mi jinvi lenu	la djim. braun pu   Each bear has a bowl.  #1's	bowl is	large.	#2's bowl is
mupli leka pijvritai  .iki'ubo tu'e la djim. braun. zivle   medium-size.  #3's bowl is tiny.
piso'e leri nunjmive lepu'u finti  .i ri ki'u le bangu ka
rutni ku to'e tersinma le certu	noi la djim. braun. cu	    ni'o ji'a ro le cribe cu ponse pa lo zutse stizu  (New
nitcu joi djica	lenu ke'a sarji	tu'u			    Para.) In addition,	each of	the bears possesses one	of the
   ni'o	ji'a le	ca natmi gunma sonci cu	mupli leka	    sitter-chairs.
pijvritai kei fau le jamna be le rakyjecta  .i .a'o ma'a    .i le ko'a stizu cu	je'a barda
selctu fi loika	pijvritai gi'e morfu'i tatri bacapiso'iroi  It1's chair	is indeed-large.
le vo'a	nunji'e						    .i le ko'e stizu cu	no'e barda
							    It2's chair	is not-really-large.
							    .i le ko'i stizu cu	to'e barda
							    It3's chair	is opposite-of-large.
	     Translations of le	lojbo se ciska
							    Also, each bear has	a sitting chair.  #1's chair is	large.
la pexykerf. .e	le ci cribe vau				    #2's chair is medium-size.	#3's chair is tiny.
The one	named Yellow-hair, and the three bears.
							    ni'o ji'a ro le cribe cu ponse pa lo sipna ckana  (New
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.				    Para.) In addition,	each of	the bears possesses one	of the
							    sleeper-beds.
							    .i le ko'a ckana cu	je'a barda
ni'oni'o fu'e ka'u le ci prenu cribe cu	se zdani	    It1's bed is indeed-large.
tu'i le	tricu						    .i le ko'e ckana cu	no'e barda
(New topic) (Open indicator scope) I know culturally:  The  It2's bed is not-really-large.
three person-bears are nested (in a house), associated-	    .i le ko'i ckana cu	to'e barda
with-site the trees.					    It3's bed is opposite-of-large.
.i le je'a barda cribe po'u la pafrib. goi ko'a	vau
The indeed-large-bear which-is called Father-Bear is	    Also, each bear has	a sleeping bed.	 #1's bed is large.
assigned as it1.					    #2's bed is	medium-size.  #3's bed is tiny.
.i le no'e barda cribe po'u la mamrib. goi ko'e	vau
The not-really-large-bear which-is called Mother-Bear is
assigned as it2.					    ni'o le cribe cu cikna
							    (New para.)	The bears are awake
							    gi'e tisna le kabri	lei cilmo gurni
							    and	fill the cups with (some-of)-the wet-grain

							   81


mu'i le	nu citka le pamoi sanmi
motivatedly-because the-event-of eating	the first-meal.
.i ku'i	lei gurni cu dukse				    ni'o ko'u zgana le ci stizu
However, the grain is excess				    (New Para.)	It5 observes the three chairs.
le ka glare kei	le pu'u	citka kei			    .i ko'u tatpi
in the property	of warm-ness by-standard the-process-of-    It5	is tired
eating							       semu'i le nu jdice le nu	zutse
seki'u le zu'o le cribe	cu cadzu			    motivating-therefore the-event-of-deciding-the-event-of-
by-reason-therefore the-activity-of the	bears walking.	    sitting.
.i melbi djedi						    .i pamai ko'u troci	zutse le ko'a stizu
Beautiful day.						    First, it5 tryingly-sits-on	it1's chair.
							       .i ku'i ri dukse	je'a galtu
The bears awaken, and fill their cups with porridge in	    But	it (the	chair) is-excessively-indeed-high.
order to eat breakfast.	 But the porridge is too hot to	    .i remai ko'u troci	zutse le ko'e stizu
eat, justifying	the bears going	for a walk.  It's a nice    Second, it5	tryingly-sits-on it2's chair.
day.							       .i ku'i ri dukse	to'e galtu
							    But	it (the	chair) is-excessively-opposite-of-high.
							    .i cimai ko'u troci	zutse le ko'i stizu
ni'o le	verba po'u la pexykerf.	goi ko'u		    Third, it5 tryingly-sits-on	it3's chair.
(New para.) The	child, who-is called Yellow-hair, assigned     .i ri prane le ka galtu
to it5							    It (the chair) is-perfect in the property of highness.
cu catlu le nenri be le	zdani				    semu'i le zu'o ko'u	zutse le ko'i stizu
looks at the inside of the house.			    motivating-therefore the activity of it5 sitting-on	it3's
.i no prenu cu nenri					    chair
No person is inside.					    seri'a le nu ri porpi
semu'i le nu ko'u nenri	cadzu				    causing-therefore the-event-of it (the chair) breaks.
therefore-motivating the-event-of it5 inside-walking.
							    #5 observes	the three chairs.  #5 is tired,	and she
The child, Goldilocks, who we'll call #5, looks	into the    therefore decides to sit.  First #5	tries to sit on	#1's
house.	Nobody is there, so #5 walks inside.		    chair, but it is too high.	Second,	#5 tries to sit	on #2's
							    chair, but it is too low.  Third, #5 tries to sit on #3's
							    chair.  It's perfect in height, and	she therefore sits in
ni'o ko'u zgana	le ci kabri				    #3's chair,	causing	it to break.
(New Para.) It5	observes the three cups.
.i ko'u	xagji
It5 is hungry						    ni'o ko'u zgana le ci ckana
semu'i le nu jdice le nu citka lei gurni		    (New Para.)	It5 observes the three beds.
motivating-therefore the-event-of-deciding-the-event-of-    .i ko'u mu'erta'i
eating-of-the-grain.					    It5	is much-tired
.i pamai ko'u troci citka lei ko'a gurni		       semu'i le nu jdice le nu	sipna vreta
First, it5 tryingly-eats of-it1's grain.		    motivating-therefore the-event-of-deciding-the-event-of-
   .i ku'i ri dukse je'a glare				    sleepily-resting-on.
But it (the grain) is-excessively-indeed-warm.		    .i pamai ko'u troci	vreta le ko'a ckana
.i remai ko'u troci citka lei ko'e gurni		    First, it5 tryingly-rests-on it1's bed.
Second,	it5 tryingly-eats of-it2's grain.		       .i ku'i ri dukse	je'a jdari
   .i ku'i ri dukse to'e glare				    But	it (the	bed) is-excessively-indeed-firm.
But it (the grain) is-excessively-opposite-of-warm.	    .i remai ko'u troci	vreta le ko'e ckana
.i cimai ko'u troci citka lei ko'i gurni		    Second, it5	tryingly-rests-on it2's	bed.
Third, it5 tryingly-eats of-it3's grain.
   .i ri prane le ka glare
It (the	grain) is-perfect in the property of warmness.
semu'i le zu'o ko'u citka pi ro	lei ko'i gurni
motivating-therefore the activity of it5 eating	all-of
it3's grain.
#5 observes the	three cups.  #5	is hungry, and she
therefore decides to eat the porridge.	First #5 tries to
eat #1's porridge, but it is too hot.  Second, #5 tries	to
eat #2's porridge, but it is too cold.	Third, #5 tries	to
eat #3's porridge.  It's perfectly warm, and she therefore
eats all of the	porridge.

							   82


   .i ku'i ri dukse to'e jdari
But it (the bed) is-excessively-opposite-of-firm.	    #1 looks at	its chair, and says in its loud	voice,
.i cimai ko'u troci vreta le ko'i ckana			    "Something sat in my chair."
Third, it5 tryingly-rests-on it3's bed.
   .i ri prane le ka jdari
It (the	bed) is-perfect	in the property	of firmness.	    .i ko'e catlu le vo'a stizu
semu'i le zu'o ko'u sipna				    It2	looks at its chair
motivating-therefore the-activity-of it5 sleeping.	    gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'e no'e cladu voksa
							    and	then expresses using-tool it2's	not-really-loud-voice
#5 observes the	three beds.  #5	is very	tired, and she	    lu dexire pu zutse le mi stizu li'u
therefore decides to rest.  First #5 tries to rest on #1's  "Something22 sat-on	my chair."
bed, but it is too hard.  Second, #5 tries to rest on #2's
bed, but it is too soft.  Third, #5 tries to rest on #3's   #2 looks at	its chair, and says in its medium voice,
bed.  It's perfectly firm, and she therefore sleeps.	    "Something sat in my chair."


ni'o le	cribe cu xruti gi'e djica lei gurni		    .i ko'i catlu le vo'a stizu
(New para.) The	bears return and want the grain.	    It3	looks at its chair
							    gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'i to'e cladu voksa
The bears return and want their	porridge.		    and	then expresses using-tool it3's	opposite-of-loud-voice
							    lu dixire pu ba'e daspo zutse le mi	stizu li'u
							    "Something33 DESTRUCTIVELY sat-on my chair."
ni'o ko'a catlu	le vo'a	kabri
(New para.) It1	looks at its cup			    #3 looks at	its chair, and says in its soft	voice,
gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'a je'a cladu voksa		    "Something destructively sat in my chair."
and then expresses using-tool it1's indeed-loud-voice
lu da pu citka piso'u lei mi gurni li'u
"Something1 ate	a-little-of my grain."			    .i ko'a catlu le vo'a ckana
							    It1	looks at its bed
#1 looks at its	bowl, and says in its loud voice,	    gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'a je'a cladu voksa
"Something ate some of my porridge."			    and	then expresses using-tool it1's	indeed-loud-voice
							    lu daxici pu sipna vreta le	mi ckana li'u
							    "Something13 sleepily-rested-on my bed."
.i ko'e	catlu le vo'a kabri
It2 looks at its cup					    #1 looks at	its bed, and says in its loud voice, "Something
gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'e no'e cladu voksa		    slept in my	bed."
and then expresses using-tool it2's not-really-loud-voice
lu de pu citka piso'u lei mi gurni li'u
"Something2 ate	a-little-of my grain."			    .i ko'e catlu le vo'a ckana
							    It2	looks at its bed
#2 looks at its	bowl, and says in its medium voice,	    gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'e no'e cladu voksa
"Something ate some of my porridge."			    and	then expresses using-tool it2's	not-really-loud-voice
							    lu dexici pu sipna vreta le	mi ckana li'u
							    "Something23 sleepily-rested-on my bed."
.i ko'i	catlu le vo'a kabri
It3 looks at its cup					    #2 looks at	its bed, and says in its medium	voice,
gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'i to'e cladu voksa		    "Something slept in	my bed."
and then expresses using-tool it3's opposite-of-loud-voice
lu di pu citka pi ba'e ro lei mi gurni li'u"
Something3 ate ALL of my grain."			    .i ko'i catlu le vo'a ckana
							    It3	looks at its bed
#3 looks at its	bowl, and says in its soft-voice,	    gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'i to'e cladu voksa
"Something ate ALL of my porridge."			    and	then expresses using-tool it3's	opposite-of-loud-voice
							    lu dixici pu je ba'e ca sipna vreta	le mi ckana li'u
.i ko'a	catlu le vo'a stizu				    "Something13 was-and-IS_NOW	sleepily-resting-on my bed."
It1 looks at its chair
gi'ebabo cusku sepi'o le ko'a je'a cladu voksa		    #3 looks at	its bed, and says in its soft voice, "Something
and then expresses using-tool it1's indeed-loud-voice	    slept and IS SLEEPING in my	bed."
lu daxire pu zutse le mi stizu li'u
"Something12 sat-on my chair."

							   83


ni'o ri'a la'edi'u ko'u	cikna						   sleepingly-rests-on attempts
(New para.) Because of this (it3's looking and saying),	it5
is awake.						    but	with the place structure of "vreta", the final element
.i le cribe cu catlu ko'u				    of the tanru, determining the interpretation of the
The bears look at it5					    trailing sumti (the	bed).  The essential claim is that of
seki'u le nu ko'u bajra	cliva				    trying, not	of sleepingly-resting, which is	the norm with
which-reason-justifies the-event-of it5	runningly-leaving.  intentional	statements.  Using "co"	preserves "troci" as
.i le cribe noroi ku'a ba viska	ko'u			    the	essential claim, while allowing	access to the trailing
The bears never-intersection-later see it5.		    place of "vreta":

This causes #5 to be awake.  The bears look at #5,			   troci co sipna vreta	le ckana
justifying #5's	hasty departure.  The bears never again	see	       "tries to sleepingly-rest-on the	bed"
#5.
							      This change was not made in the story because the	vaguer
fa'o							    tanru is sufficiently understandable given the context, and
End of text.						    we're reluctant to make unnecessary	changes	in an
The End.						    translator's work.	Besides, it gave the opportunity for
							    this mini-lesson in	"co".  (There is a more	clear example
							    of "co" with "troci" given in the next commentary.)
  The preceding	was among other	things an exercise in
causal constructions.  It is worthwhile	to examine closely
when each causal was used, and how it affected the		   A Letter From Sylvia	Rutiser	to T. Peter Park
translation.  Some of the choices were marginal	(and some
indeed were changed during editing of this text).	      This letter was written about a month before Sylvia's
  Note the insertion of	"vreta"	with "sipna" in	those	    attempt at the Carter paragraph.  The difference is	plain:
sentences that refer to	the bed	being slept on.	 You don't  she	makes a	lot of minor word choice errors	because	she had
need a bed to sleep, but you do	need to	be upon	something   only just started studying the cmavo.
to rest-on it.	Place structures are important in Lojban.
(Without the "vreta", sentences	translate like "it5	    di'o zoi .kuot. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax, VA	 22031 .kuot.
tryingly-sleeps	in-some-way-associated-with it2's bed"	    At the locus of (non-Lojban) "2904 Beau Lane",
which gets the point across, but none to exactly.  In
pragmatic situations, of course, this version would be	    ["tu'i" is the correct choice, not "di'o", for location on
correctly understood given the context,	(which is why	    a letter.  Also, to	be more	correct, "la'e"	should be used
guessing at place structures usually works).		    on the "zoi" quote (giving the thing indicated by the
  One further change would probably be justified, but was   address instead of the address), or	optionally the new non-
not made.  Goldilocks, as the story progresses "troci	    Lojban-name	marker "la'o", which has the same grammar as
broda" "tryingly-does-something" in John's text.  This	    "zoi" - this then treats the address as the	name of	a
becomes	especially cumbersome with the "sipna vreta"	    location.
construction, because "troci sipna vreta" groups in pairs
from the left, giving "tryingly-sleeps kind-of-rests",
losing some symmetry by	dividing the "sipna vreta" tanru.   de'i la'eli	so pi'e	pa vau coi doi ti.pitr.
To right-group,	you need "ke" or "bo":			    associated-with-date the-referent-of the number 9/1	(9
							    January), greetings	O T.Peter.
		   troci ke sipna vreta			      Here, the	"la'e" isn't needed, since a date is merely a
			    or				    string of numbers.	The "coi" greetings here attaches to
		   troci sipna bo vreta			    the	"vau" on the previous line, since no ".i" was used
							    between the	two lines.
which identically mean:

		 "tryingly sleepily-rests"		    .i la bab. pu cpedu	lenu mi	cu spuda le do xatra po	le
							    xriso nunsalci
  The problem is more easily solved using "co",	a word	    The	one named Bob requested	the event of my	responding to
especially valuable with tanru involving "troci", "djica",  your letter	which is possessed by the Christ celebration.
and certain other words	that link actions/events with	      "pe" instead of "po" would be more correct, giving the
intentions ('intentional verbs'	in English).  Inserting	    letter "loosely associated with" the celebration.
"co" inverts the tanru,	making it translate much more
clearly	into English (and probably causing increased
clarity	in the Lojban as well).	 This gives the	equivalent  .i loi snime poi puza farlu	ku'o ca	runme
of:							    A mass of snow which a-while-ago fell, now melts.
		     sipna vreta troci

							   84


  I would have used "lei", since she has a specific mass of Let's break	this sentence up so it is more understandable:
snow in	mind (the stuff	on the ground here), but this isn't
wrong, and indeed is a good usage of tense.		    ni'o
							    (New paragragh)
							    la bab. puzi te benji
.i le solri cu gusni ga'a mi				      le nuzba po'u
The sun	is an illuminator, observed by me.  (I can see the	 lenu la .atlstan. goi ko'a
sun shining.)							      pu klama
									 la iutas.
									 fu leko'a karce
la bab.	puzi te	benji le nuzba po'u lenu la .atlstan. goi		 mu'i lenu
ko'a pu	klama la iutas.	fu leko'a karce	mu'i lenu ko'a			    ko'a djica
djica lenu tavla le lobypli sedi'o la iutas.					 lenu tavla
The one	named Bob just was the origin of transmission of			   le lobypli
the news which is the-event-of Athelstan (it1) went to Utah			   sedi'o la iutas.
via mode his car motivated by the-event-of he desires the-  The	one named Bob just was the origin of transmission
event-of-talking to the	Lojban-users at-specific-locus-	      of the news which	is
Utah.								 the-event-of Athelstan	(it1)
								      went
In colloquial English, this is still complicated:			 to Utah
  Bob just told	me the news that Athelstan went	to Utah	in		 via mode his car
  his car in order to talk to some Utah	Lojbanists.			 motivated by the-event-of
and the	sentence could have been simplified a bit to match		    he desires
that colloquial	translation.							 the-event-of-talking
										   to the Lojban-users
										   at-specific-locus-Utah.

							    The	place structure	of news	includes a source, so the
							    outer-most selbri using "benji" wasn't needed (I'll
							    demonstrate	in a moment).  It also wasn't the main claim of
							    the	sentence, which	was the	news itself.  In addition, "te
							    benji" was a bad choice for	Bob:  "benji" is a transmission
							    of which this 3rd place is the origin.  In this context,
							    Bob	is the first place of "benji" -	the transmit origin was
							    somewhere in the house in Fairfax VA.  A final error is in
							    the	places of "nuzba".  Sylvia here	has equated the	news
							    (le	nuzba) with the	event, which is	really "le se nuzba",
							    the	2nd place of "nuzba".  Here's Bob's version:

							      la bab. puzi te nuzba lenu la. .atlstan. pu klama	la
							      .iutas. fu lera karce semu'i lenu	tavla le lobypli pe la
							      .iutas.
							      Bob was-just a-source-of-news of-the-event Athelstan went
							      to-Utah in-his-car, motivated-to the-event-of talking-to
							      the Lojban-users of Utah.

							    Even this non-colloquial translation is only slightly
							    longer than	the colloquial English.


							    ni'o mi ca troci lenu cilre	lo'i cmavo
							    (New para.)	I now try the event of learning	the set	of
							    cmavo.

							    Using the "co" construction	mentioned in "The Three	Bears"
							    commentary,	this would be:

							      mi ca troci co cilre lo'i	cmavo
							      I	am now a tryer of-type learner-of-the-set-of-cmavo.


							   85


Either version is acceptable, and I won't state	a
preference.  Nora prefers Sylvia's version, since it
explicitly uses	the place structure of "troci",	and she	    ({<[({<de'e	[fi (la	maiky'elsym.)]>	CU <xatra [(de'i {li
prefers	to avoid tanru in favor	of place structure usage      <[pa bi ki'o fei ki'o so no] BOI>}) VAU]>}
whenever it is not excessively burdensome (and "lenu" is    {i <coi [do'o (pe {zi KU} GEhU)] DOhU>} POhO)
not much longer	than "co").				    (i e'a) ({selmi'a minseldunda} vau)]
							    [i u'u se'i] [ri CU	(mleca {<[da (poi {<mi ke'a> CU	djica}
							      ku'o)] [ri'a (le {mi <[ba	zi] [mextutra ***ze'i***
.i .e'o	ko fraxu mi leni cizra gerna po	mu'i la'edi'u	      nunli'u]>} KU)]> VAU})]>
(Petition!) Forgive me for the-amount-of bizarre-grammar    The	ze'i was in Michael's original,	was not	grammatical nor
closely-associated-with	motivationally because of the	    particularly necessary, so I deleted it.
referent-of-the-last-sentence (the trying to learn).	    i POhO}
  Colloquially:
Please forgive me for the bizarre grammar that results from ni'o {<[({mi do} CU	{ckire <[(le {selbei <judri [be	({la
this (trying to	learn).					      .atlstan.}
  "po" should be "pe"; we usually use "po" for physical		 {no'u <[(ca ze'e) vu ki'a] KU>	GEhU}) BEhO]>} KU) ]
possession or a	very close association.	 "pe" indicates	a     VAU>})
much looser association	used with most phrases.	 Also, I    i ({mi ri} {ba <xagdicra la'a [(pu {le <mi vuzyseltei> KU})
doubt that the bizarre grammar was really motivated by the    VAU]>})]
learning.  The learning	might be a reason, though:	    i POhO>

  leni cizra gerna pe ki'u la'edi'u			    ni'o <[({di'e CU <[cnino (ke {mitfa'e lerpoi} KEhE)] VAU>}
							    i {<lu [ua ({vibjbi	vau} FAhO)] li'u> CU <zmadu [({lei
							      mordrata KU}
ni'o .e'o ledo tcima cu	pluka					 {le <ka [(plikakne {su'o mei zo'o pe'i	cu'i}) VAU]
(New para.) (Petition!)	Your weather is	pleasing.	      KEI> KU})	VAU]>})
  ".a'o" (hope)	seems like the more likely attitude, since  (i to'u a'o) ({<sarji balvi> snada}	{vau <mi'e maikl.
there is little	T.Peter	can do about his weather.	      DOhU>})] FAhO>})

.i .e'o	ko kanro					    The	following is Michael's intended	translation:
(Petition!) Be healthy.
							      This is from Michael Helsem a letter dated 18 November
							    1990.  Hi y'all.  Here's some more money.  Unfortunately
coi la silvian						    it's less than I would prefer on account of	my forthcoming
(Greetings, Sylvia.)					    trip to Mexico.  Thanks for	sending	Athelstan's address -
  She had not yet learned "mi'e", and greeted instead of    he's not still gone	is he?	I'll get in touch with him
parted.	 A 'correct' letter closer conveying her intent	is  maybe before I go...  Here's a new palindrome: "Eureka!
"co'omi'e" (Partings!, I am ...)			    vagina-near!" - which is a bit more	useful than the	others
							    of the pattern ...(ahem).  Anyway, hope the	others come
							    through.  Michael.
	       A letter	from Michael Helsem		    Of course, intentions are only half	the story.  Here's how
							    Bob	reads the letter:
  Michael uses much more complex (and bizarre at times)
grammar	than Sylvia.  He asked for a letter of his to be
run through the	parser,	showing	the result.  I chose a	    de'e fi la maiky'elsym. xatra de'i li pabiki'ofeiki'osono
short one that could be	easily cleaned up.  (The old parser ({<[({<de'e	[fi (la	maiky'elsym.)]>	CU <xatra [(de'i {li
does not properly handle attitudinals and tense	compounds,    <[pa bi ki'o fei ki'o so no] BOI>}) VAU]>}
and some newer cmavo, which Michael uses a lot of;	    The	soon utterances, from Michael Helsem, are-a-letter
therefore I have to manually add the deleted text to the    dated 18,00B,090 (18 million odd in	some base greater than
parse output).						    12).
							      "ki'o" is	a 'real	number', normally meaning 'thousands'
de'e fi	la maiky'elsym.	xatra de'i li pabiki'ofeiki'osono   (depending on the normal place for inserting commas), used
.i coi do'opezi	 .i .e'a selmi'a minseldunda vau  .i	    in writing large numbers.  It can also replace 3 zeroes in
.u'use'i ri mleca da poi mi ke'a djica ku'o ri'a lemi bazi  large numbers such as business reports.  Michael wanted
mextutra nunli'u  .i ni'o mi do	ckire le selbei	judri be la "pi'e", the	non-decimal separator, giving "18/B/90", where
.atlstan. no'u caze'evu	ki'a  .i mi ri ba xagdicra la'a	pu  "B"	is the non-base-10 digit for 11	(November).
lemi vuzyseltei	 .i ni'o di'e cnino ke mitfa'e lerpoi  .i
lu .ua vibjbi vau li'u zmadu lei mordrata leka plikakne
su'omei	zo'ope'icu'i  .i to'u .a'o sarji balvi snada vau    .i coi do'opezi
mi'e maikl.						    {i <coi [do'o (pe {zi KU} GEhU)] DOhU>} POhO)

							   86


Greetings, you and others who are a short-distance-in-time  .i .u'use'i	ri mleca da poi	mi ke'a	djica ku'o ri'a	lemi
away from ...						      bazi mextutra nunli'u
  "zi" is used only for	distances in time (now); in the	    [i u'u se'i] [ri CU	(mleca {<[da (poi {<mi ke'a> CU	djica}
past it	could be either	time or	space distance,	but this      ku'o)] [ri'a (le {mi <[ba	zi] [mextutra ***ze'i***
changed	when we	did the	final tense grammar.  This isn't      nunli'u]>} KU)]> VAU})]>
necessarily clear in the published cmavo list, and we will  (I regret -	self oriented!)	The-last-sumti-it (you-and-
be clarifying it in later versions (see	also the sheet of   others-near-in-time) is less than something1 which I, the
changes	enclosed with this issue).  "vi" is the		    something, want, less-than because my soon-future Mexican
corresponding space-time distance, but I would prefer	    territory (*short-time-interval) event-of-travelling.
"ve'i" (lexeme VEhA) which indicates an	interval (you and     I	would tend to take self-oriented-regret	as an apology
others in the space around ... [you implied])		    to himself,	but this is to be determined by	usage.
							      It's clear from the translation that the "ri" was
							    intended to	refer to the money-gift, but there is no sumti
.i .e'a	selmi'a	minseldunda vau				    in that sentence to	refer to.  "le jdini" or "le selyle'i"
(i e'a)	({selmi'a minseldunda} vau)]			    would have served.	Then, of course, Michael is using a
(Permission!) (Observative) Added-things type-of commander- comparison,	and should therefore have some reference to
gifts.							    amounts, so	make that "le ni jdini"	or "le ni selyle'i".
  No idea about	what the attitudinal is, or for	that	    (Two parallel usages for the comparatives seem to be
matter,	what the sentence means.  Given	the translation, I  possible, and equally valid:  The amount-of-A is-less-than
might conclude a typo for dinseldunda (money-gifts).  This  the	amount-of-B in-property-C, by-amount-D,	and A is-less-
suggests that the money	he sent	was a donation rather than  than B in-the-amount-of-C, by-amount-D.)
a voluntary balance contribution (the distinction is	      Michael seems to like SOV	(subject-object-verb
important), which is not reflected in the English.  (We	    constructions); very non-English but perfectly acceptable.
assumed	a balance contribution).  "selpleji" (something-    The	something1 must	be an amount of	some kind.
paid) would be clearer for a balance contribution, or	      The "ku'o" was excellent,	and grammatically vital.
depending on how you philosophically look at it, something  Without it,	the "because" would have been attached to the
involving "se fatri pagbu" (distributed-part = share)	    relative clause bridi, involving "djica"; this comes out
							    like "It's less than the amount I want because of my
							    trip.", as compared	to his correct "It's less than the
							    amount I want, because of my trip."	 It's in samples like
							    these that we see how complex language is in general, and
							    thus realize that even a simple language like Lojban
							    requires thought in	order to use it.
							      I	have no	idea what the intent of	the "ze'i" was,	but any
							    tense inflections must be before the beginning of the
							    selbri, not	in the middle of it.  Note that	"litru"	is any
							    self-movement via a	route with no origin or	destination
							    implied; it	does not mean "travel" in the norma English
							    sense.  Normally, you will use "klama" if you are
							    specifically going somewhere.  In this case, however, it
							    worked well, since the tanru modifier, Mexican-territory,
							    is a reasonable brief description of the route involved in
							    his	intended trip.


							    .i
							    i POhO}
							    And...
							      It seems clear here that Michael thought you need	an ".i"
							    before a "ni'o".  You don't, and the parser	thinks he had a
							    partial sentence with no body.

							    ni'o mi do ckire le	selbei judri be	la .atlstan. no'u
							      caze'evu ki'a
							    ni'o {<[({mi do} CU	{ckire <[(le {selbei <judri [be	({la
							      .atlstan.} {no'u <[(ca ze'e) vu ki'a] KU>	GEhU}) BEhO]>}
							      KU) ] VAU>})
							    (New para.)	I to-you am-grateful for-the transferred
							    address of Athelstan, who incidentally is identical	to now-

							   87


for-some-unspecified-time-interval far-from (Please	    .i mi ri ba	xagdicra la'a pu lemi vuzyseltei
clarify, I'm confused!)					    i ({mi ri} {ba <xagdicra la'a [(pu {le <mi vuzyseltei> KU})
  A very strange SOV construction, with	two sumti before      VAU]>})]
and one	after, not too common in any language that I know   I, Athelstan, good-interrupt (Probably!) before my
of.  The relative phrase is perfectly grammatical and even  yonder_far-time-interval.
vaguely	understandable (I'd have guessed his intent without   "ri" is correctly	Athelstan, though it might not be if
a translation),	but the	semantics are all wrong.  Michael   some of my various alternates had been used.
wanted "ne" instead of "no'u", for a phrasal construction,    I	have no	idea what his tanru means, and can't even guess
and "ma" instead of "ki'a" to ask the question:		    how	to correct it, except that I strongly suspect that he
							    wanted "zabna" (positive connotation) instead of "xamgu"
  la .atlstan. ne caze'evi ma				    (good for ...)  For	his English, I would use "benji", or
  Athelstan, who incidentally is associated with during-an- actually "troci co benji", since he	clearly	isn't sure he
  unspecified-interval-at where				    actually can get in	touch with Athelstan before he leaves.
							      The final	tanru is understandable	after I	see his
This could still be asking when	as well	as where, since	    English, not before.  Why doesn't he use the plain
there is a time	and a location tag in the sumti	tcita	    equivalent of his English:	"pu lenu mi cliva".  (I	repeat
"caze'evi", so even more clear would be:		    my puzi remark about misintepreting	strange	usages.	 The
							    burden of communicating, especially	in a letter where there
  la .atlstan. noi caze'e zvati	ma			    is no possibility of immediate questioning feedback, is
  Athelstan, who incidentally during-an-unspecified-	    TOTALLY on the speaker/writer.)
  interval is-at where

None of	these is quite the same	as his English translation, .i
which was:						    i POhO>
  Thanks for sending Athelstan's address - he's	not still   And	...
  gone is he?						      Another unneeded prelude to a "ni'o".

This might best	be expressed as:
							    ni'o di'e cnino ke mitfa'e lerpoi
  la .atlstan. noi caze'e zvati	tu(pevu) xu		    ni'o <[({di'e CU <[cnino (ke {mitfa'e lerpoi} KEhE)] VAU>}
  Athelstan, who incidentally during-for-an-unspecified-    (New para.)	The next utterance is-a	newish,	identical-
  interval is-at somewhere else	(besides where you and I    reverse, letteral-sequence.	(a new palindrome)
  are) (which-is-a-long-distance) Is this true?		      Excellent, almost.  The following	utterance is the entire
							    chunk in the next parse, whereas Michael really wants the
In this	version, the "pevu" is optional	if there was a	    first sumti	of the next utterance.	"vo'a pe di'e" might
possiblilty that Michael wanted	to differentiate between    work.
"still gone in Europe" from perhaps "still gone	visiting      This is a	tricky problem in anaphora choice. Usage - or
his family in Baltimore", which	would be a kind	of "still   the	logicians - will have to determine whether quotes in a
gone from your nearby presence", implied by the	greeting    sumti are part of that sumti.  "vo'a" could	be
vocative.  But I wouldn't be so	perverse as to misinterpret misinterpreted to include the non-symmetrical quote	marks
him that wildly, would I?  (Actually, I	might.	If you use  (lu...li'u)	in such	a metalinguistic reference as this, and
strange	and complex grammatical	constructions and semantic  these are not part of the palindrome (la'e vo'a pe di'e,
usages without mastering the basic ones, I am forced to	    maybe?).  Perhaps he might have simply put the palindrome
stretch	my mind	quite far to try to figure you out.)	    in its own utterance, as he	promised, and then refer back
							    to it with "di'u" in the following sentence	(.i is a
							    sentence separator and is NOT part of the utterance).



							   88


.i lu .ua vibjbi vau li'u zmadu	lei mordrata leka plikakne    "(Discovery!) Vagina-near-thing" is-more-than all-of the
  su'omei zo'ope'icu'i					      same-form	other-things in-amount-of the-typical being-
i {<lu [ua ({vibjbi vau} FAhO)]	li'u> CU <zmadu	[({lei	      innately-able-to use (it)	by-amount the-number at-least-
  mordrata KU} {le <ka [(plikakne {su'o	mei zo'o pe'i	      some (Humor!) (I not-necessarily-opine!)
  cu'i}) VAU] KEI> KU})	VAU]>})
"(Discovery!) vagina-near_thing" is-more-than the-mass-of
pattern-others in the property of user-ability at-least-    .i to'u .a'o sarji balvi snada vau mi'e maikl.
some-cardinality-ness (Humor! I	don't necessarily opine!).  (i to'u a'o) ({<sarji balvi> snada}	{vau <mi'e maikl.
  The palindrome is neat, grammatical and semantically	      DOhU>})] FAhO>})
correct, and presumably	is a useful comment for	a male on   In brief, (I hope!)	(Observative) Supporter-ly-future
the prowl.						    success, I am Michael.
  Unfortunately, the rest of his sentence isn't	clear at      Definitely brief.	 I prefer "ba sarji snada", which is
all; even with the help	of his English it appears that he   even briefer.  Why clutter up a tanru with a tense that can
combined the x3	and x4 places of "zmadu".		    be misinterpreted, when the	tense can go in	front and be
  I interpret "lei mordrata" to	be "things other than	    clear?.
palindromes in form", whereas he wants "other palindromes".   Because Michael did not separate the "mi'e" from the
I would	try "mitmo'a drata"				    preceding with an ".i", it attaches	to the vau, in effect
("same-form other-things").  He	also may not want a mass.   making this	entire sentence	his closing salutation.	 This
You are	more than a mass if you	are more than any part of   is not apparent in his English, but	the sentiments seem
it.  (Example: someone of your height is above you when	    appropriate	to a salutation.  Ironically then, his
standing on the	next higher step of a staircase, even	    salutation is NOT brief, at	least compared to what most
though most of her/his body is below your head.)  Masses    others write.
are funny things that are not semantically-familar to
English-speakers; be careful when playing with them.	      (.i .i'acai I give Michael a hard	time in	these analyses,
Michael	wanted either "ro le drata" (more than each-of the  but	at least he keeps trying, and indeed is	improving.
others), or "piro lei drata" (more than	all-of the-mass-of  Perhaps Michael can	forgive	me for not doing this kind of
others).						    analysis on	his ever-accumulating poetry (must be over 50
  Per my above comments	on comparison, x1 and x2 of "zmadu" poems so far), and his several long	letters	(this was only
are not	amounts, and therefore x3 should be.  This suggests a 5"x8" handwritten	sheet, with interlinear	translation -
"leni plikakne kei" (the amount	of user-ableness), or my    Michael has	written	several-page letters typewritten,
preference, "leni zu'i ka'e pilno kei" (the amount of the-  entirely in	Lojban).  Keep it up, Michael (only .e'ocai try
typical-something being-innately-capable-of-using).  The    some less creative constructions).
latter makes it	clearer	that it	is the x2 place	of "pilno"
(by explicitly specifying the x1 as something else) that
specifies where	the palindrome goes in the leni	clause.				    Next Issue
(Without clarifying, a perverse	reader might think this
means "the palindrome is more able to use something than      Next issue will be much shorter than this	one, at	least
other palindromes", which is mind-bogglingly implausible as if we want to see a	textbook this century.	But I'll try to
an interpretation - but	certainly within bounds	for	    have it out	well before LogFest, making a shorter-than-
Michael).						    three-months cycle between issues.	I would	like to	have
  The "su'omei"	is not a sumti,	and if it were,	would need  some of your attempts at the translation project paragraphs
a "kei"	on the end of the x3 of	"zmadu"	(as in my version   (or	tanru or sentences) before then.
in the last paragraph) to not be part of the amount.  From    We expect	to have	more information on our	new software
Michael's English, "li su'o" as	x4 would convey	his	    products and their prices, and who knows, perhaps a	better
meaning.						    estimate on	the textbook date.
  Finally, I presume the attitudinals on the end belong	on
the whole utterance.  Where they are, they apply only to
the final sumti.  In Lojban, you either	need to	put the
attitudinal on the front of the	sentence (in this case
perhaps	unfortunately flagging the humor before	making the
joke), or putting it on	an explicit "vau" at the end of	the
sentence.

  With all these comments, my version of the last two
sentences would	thus read:
  ni'o vo'a pe di'e cnino ke mitfa'e lerpoi. .i	lu .ua
  vibjbi vau li'u zmadu	piro lei mitmo'a drata leni zu'i
  ka'e pilno kei li su'o vau zo'ope'icu'i
  (New para. The-first-sumti pertaining-to the-next-
  utterance is-a new, same-reverse letter-sequence.

  The expected highlight will be John Cowan's "selma'o catalog", a complete listing of each of the selma'o
(lexemes/gramemes) with	an explanation of how each is used, and	LOTS of	examples.  This	will not only be an important
addition to the	tools available	to you as Lojban learners, it will also	be a part of the Lojban	dictionary - the first
part of	that work to be	completed.
  John has given us a draft already - it will probably be longer than the rest of the issue.  The text is being
extensively reviewed by	several	people,	and even more examples will be added before it is done.

						      NEWS RELEASE
						    8 February 1991
						 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

									      Contact: Robert LeChevalier (703)	385-0273

Trademark Office Rules "Loglan"	Generic
The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office Appeals Board ruled Tuesday that the name	"Loglan" ("logical language") is
generic.  The Board also ordered cancellation of a trademark registration for "Loglan,"	held by	The Loglan Institute,
Inc. of	Florida.  The summary judgement	ruling is a major victory for The Logical Language Group, Inc.,	a non-profit
research group in Fairfax, Virginia.

Basis for the Dispute
Loglan is an artificial	language started in 1955 by Dr.	James Cooke Brown.  After a June 1960 Scientific American
article, the language attracted	widespread interest among linguists, computer scientists, and the international	language
movement.  Volunteers aided Brown as work on the language continued into the 1980's.  Slow progress and	internal
disputes caused	a steady fall-off of support.  This trend grew when Brown claimed copyright on the language for	himself
and his	institute.
Major supporters of Loglan founded the Logical Language	Group (LLG) in 1987 to reverse Loglan's	declining support.
Separate from Brown, LLG finished a public domain version of Loglan and	promoted its use.  The LLG version is called
Lojban,	based on the word for "logical language" in that version of the	language.  Facing a loss of control over the
language, Brown	registered a trademark in "Loglan" in early 1988.  The trademark and copyright claims restricted the
rights of long-time workers and	supporters of Loglan.  Many felt the claims a betrayal of earlier promises.  A legal
battle followed, leading to the	present	decision.

Importance of Loglan/Lojban
Loglan/Lojban is a written and spoken human language.  Its original purpose was	research in language and culture.
Loglan/Lojban is simple	and logical, and has an	unambiguous grammar.  Thus, computer scientists	view Loglan/ Lojban as a
likely tool for	artificial intelligence	research and human-computer communications.  Educators believe Loglan/Lojban can
be an effective	tool in	foreign	language education.  As	an artificial language,	Loglan/Lojban also attracts followers of
the international language movement.  This movement seeks a culture-free alternative to	languages such as English, and
promotes international communication and world peace.  The Logical Language Group supports these uses.

People have used Lojban	in conversation	for over a year; the language was completed in August 1990.  Over 100 people are
actively studying the language.	 Hundreds more await a Lojban textbook,	expected later in 1991.	 These people live all
over the world,	with concentrations in Washington DC, Boston, New York City, San Francisco, and	Los Angeles.  Volunteers
lead classes and study groups in these and other cities.  LLG sells teaching materials,	computer programs, and other
materials.

Importance of the Trademark Victory
The trademark dispute has constrained LLG in promoting the language.  Millions of readers are familiar with the	name
"Loglan" from magazine articles	and science fiction novels.  Legal threats from	Brown intimidated many people from
committing their full support.	The ruling frees these people to support Loglan/Lojban without fear of reprisal.  The
decision also will encourage computer researchers to invest time and money in Loglan/Lojban.  Finally, this decision
removes	a major	obstacle to resolving the underlying disputes and reuniting the	Loglan effort.
							   1


					  Changes to the Published cmavo Lists
						 as of 25 February 1991
	      (Some changes are	contingent on approval of John Cowan's proposed	grammar	baseline changes.)


.uibu	  (BY*)	- assign with meaning "smiley face"
be'u	  (UI)	- assign with meaning "lack/need"; was UNK
		  "lack/need - presence/satisfaction - satiation"
be'ucu'i  (UI*)	- assign with meaning "presence/satisfaction"
		  "lack/need - presence/satisfaction - satiation"
be'unai	  (UI*)	- assign with meaning "satiation"
		  "lack/need - presence/satisfaction - satiation"
bu'o	  (GOhA)  - free (UNK)
bu'u	  (GOhA)  - free (UNK)
ce'i	  (MOI)	- selma'o change to PA;	meaning	changes	to 'percent' as	a number; works	with si'e to form percentages of
		  the MOI variety
co'e	  (DU)	- free (UNK)
denpa bu  (BY*)	- assign with meaning "."
do'e	  (DOhE)  - free (UNK)
du	  (DU)	- selma'o change to GOhA
tedu'o	  (BAI*)  - djuno place	structure change; assign with meaning "under epistemology ..."
fa'anai	  (FAhA*) - meaning corrected to "not towards point"
fau	  (BAI)	- fasnu	place structure	change gives minor meaning change
foi	  (FOI)	- meaning change to "end composite letteral"
gau	  (BAI)	- meaning change due to	place structure	change of gasnu
		  "with	actor/agent ..." case tag
gaunai	  (BAI*)  - "with passive ..." case tag
ge'o	  (BY)	- meaning change to "Greek alphabet shift"; Cyrillic to	ru'o
je'o	  (DU)	- selma'o change to BY;	assign with meaning "Hebrew alphabet shift";
		  was jo'o
jo'o	  (BY)	- meaning change to "Arabic alphabet shift"; Hebrew to je'o
joibu	  (BY*)	- assign with meaning "&"
ka'o	  (PA)	- assign with meaning "imaginary i"; from lu'o;	was UNK
la'o	  (BY)	- selma'o change to ZOI; assign	with meaning "the foreign named"; foreign spelling permitted within
		  quotes
lau	  (LAU)	- meaning change to "punctuation mark/special symbol"
lo'a	  (BY)	- assign with meaning "Lojban/Roman alphabet shift"; replaces nei with meaning clarification; was UNK
lu'a	  (UI)	- selma'o change to LUhI; assign with meaning "the members/components of ..."; old meaning moved to
		  sa'enai
lu'anai	  (UI*)	- free;	old meaning moved to sa'e
lu'o	  (PA)	- selma'o change to LUhI; assign with meaning "the mass	with components	..."; old meaning moved	to ka'o
me'i	  (DU)	- selma'o change to PA;	now "less than"	as a digit
meryru'u bu	(BY*)	 - assign with meaning "$"
ne'o	  (FAhA)  - assign with	meaning	"adjacent/touching"; was UNK
ne'u	  (FAhA)  - assign with	meaning	"directly away from point"; was	UNK
nei	  (BY)	- free (UNK)
re'o	  (REhO)  - free (UNK)
ri'i	  (DU)	- selma'o change to BAI; assign	with meaning "happens to ...; experienced by ..."; lifri modal
ru'o	  (BY)	- assign with meaning "Cyrillic	alphabet shift"; was UNK
sa'e	  (BY)	- selma'o change to UI;	assign with meaning "precisely - loosely"; old meaning moved to	se'e
se'a	  (UI)	- assign with meaning "self-sufficiency"; was UNK; "self-sufficiency - dependence"
se'anai	  (UI*)	- assign with meaning "dependence"; "self-sufficiency -	dependence"
se'e	  (BY)	- assign with meaning "IPA alphabet shift"; from sa'e; was UNK
se'o	  (UI)	- assign with meaning "I know by internal experience" (dream, divine revelation, etc.);	was UNK
sefau	  (BAI*)  - freed by place structure change to fasnu
segau	  (BAI*)  - freed by place structure change to gasnu
tegau	  (BAI*)  - freed by place structure change to gasnu
seri'i	  (BAI*)  - assign with	meaning	"experiencing ..."
si'e	  (DU)	- selma'o change to MOI, with meaning x1 is a n-portion	of x2, where n is a number
slaka bu  (BY*)	- assign with meaning ","

							   2


tau	  (BY)	- selma'o change to LAU
te'e	  (DU)	- free (UNK)
tei	  (TEI)	- meaning change to "composite lerfu"
ti'o	  (TIhO)  - selma'o change to SEI
to'o	  (BY)	- free (UNK)
vu'a	  (DU)	- free (UNK)
vu'e	  (DU)	- free (UNK)
vu'o	  (DU)	- free (UNK)
.ybu	  (BY*)	- free;	meaning	assigned to ".y'ybu"
.y'ybu	  (BY*)	- assign with meaning "y"
za'u	  (DU)	- selma'o change to PA;	now "greater than" as a	digit
zai	  (ZAI)	- selma'o change to LAU
zi, za,	zu	(ZA)	 - clarify that	these are scalar distances in time only, and correspond	to lexeme VA for space-
		  time.	 Use ZEHA and VEhA for time and	space-time intervals
net 9 assigned from UNK; 11 freed to UNK