Re: dikyjvo

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!lojbab>]

Did I see Jim Carter actually admit that dikyjvo may not be compatible with
Lojban??????????? .uecai .ianaicai

Of course, this overstates things.  What I said was that we could not
use dikyjvo as a design element.  What is quite permissible is for you
and Nick and others to use dikyjvo as a guideline/idea generator in your
own lujvo building whereever you wish, just recognizing that not
everyone will use the same mechanical approach and that they aren't
wrong to do so.  This means that you will make your dikyjvo, but then
must look at the result from the point of view of a non-dikyjvo reader,
and if the result still seems most likely, it is fine.  If a non-dikyjvo
reader might come up with a different answer, you may or may not need
more thought.  Of course the amount of time you have will help determine
the amount of time you spend.  At conversational speeds I make new lujvo
semi-algorithmically (though I don;t know the algorithm) without that
careful check.  Of course, I'll get immediate feedback if a make a
non-understandable lujvo.  But in dictionary writing or written text
where I go back and review what I write for misunderstandings, I can
easily envision changing to a less regular construction because it fits
my inner sense of 'what is right' or more importantly 'what will be
understood'.  But even there, I still pay attention to what I perceive
the place strcuture will be for the resulting word.

So, Jim, you haven;t been totally off-base, and the work doesn;t have to be
'abandoned'.  It just has to be tempered with humanity rather than applied
mechanically and mandatorily.  I'm also wary about you use of it as an
argument for changing place structures in a direction counter to that in
which they were going.  Still, you may have helped convince me that
absolutism in declefting is as unnatural as dikyjvo, so I am far less rabid
about eliminating cleft structures that make the language unwieldy.  I want
Lojban to still feel like a natural language.

lojbab@grebyn.com