> On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> > based on conventions of language (natural languages, that is;
> > Lojban has no such concept),
>
> scientists, logicians? If they they think that a human mind can process
> "language" without nouns, etc., they are profoundly mistaken. Natural
I have reviewed the Lojban pages and stick to this statement. Just
because you don't call a word a noun or verb doesn't mean that it really
is something other than a noun or a verb. That phonetic string X is a
verb and Y is a noun is not just a categorization but a description of
structure. It's interesting how flexibly Lojban handles transfering
meaning, but it still has verbs, nouns, and other parts of speech, just as
do other natural languages.
I have doubts about the whole project, though; just a cursory glance over
the description revealed a passle of mistakes no one with knowledge of
linguistics would make; for example, calling Lojban in its current state a
pidgin. Just because it lacks a lot of vocabulary doesn't make it a
pidgin; no pidgin has the structural detail its creators have devoted.
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Wesley Schwein Art is not a mirror; art is a hammer.