Re: CHAT: Early Conlang Archives

>From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
>Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
>To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
>Subject: Re: Early Conlang Archives
>Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1999 17:56:37 -0500
>
>Edward Heil wrote:
>
>> So while being able to look at the word "sankapepabotu" and calculate
>> that because of the exact combination of syllable forms and affixes
it
>> must mean "toad the wet sprocket"
>
>Or is it "bite the wax tadpole"?  :-)
>
>> might be useful to a language learner,
>> it will be far less useful to the language *speaker*.... because
>> "calculation" as it is usually understood simply does not get used.
>
>An aspect you haven't considered is that of the person who is
>writing or speaking a word in the language for the first time.  Since
>auxlangs don't have ready-made cultures like artlangs (fictional)
>and natlangs (actual), lots of their words don't get created until
>someone needs them for a particular utterance or text.
>
>In that case it's important that the analysis be fairly transparent
>and that the word not collide with some other compound word
>that looks the same but is made up of different parts.  Otherwise
>communication will fail.
>
>(For this purpose, Lojban fits with the auxlangs.)
I can see your point there, and it is a good one.  Still, as a rule, I
think that this kind of thing is overkill.  As a rule, language has "in
it" in terms of informational content *far far less* than what we get
out of it as listeners (or intend to convey as speakers) -- and the
difference is made up by context and guesswork.

(More on this concept is in the excellent book _The User Illusion_)

We're *very good* at getting a lot out of a little, and it's both
tedious and difficult to specify more than we really need to in an
utterance.  Usually our sentences are only a few very well chosen
pointers and instructions which are enough to allow someone to perform
the necessary mental operations (transformations of existing mental
representations) to get to the meaning we intend.

I guess I see certain kinds of auxlangs as asking us to do a lot more
work to communicate than any of us ought to have to.

But I suppose that can be a good thing... Specifying very very tightly
what you are trying to convey, instead of loosely, is a good way of
"dumbing down" conversation to the point where you can avoid egregious
mistakes.  Not eliminate them.  But dramatically reduce them.

Just like science itself is a way of "dumbing down" thought.... if in
all our thoughts and decisions we had to apply scientifically rigorous
standards of proof, we'd be paralyzed... we normally think via lots of
effective but fallible heuristics.  But by giving up on those powerful
but fallible heuristics -- the educated guesswork by which we live most
of our lives effectively but which can deceive us -- we get a method of
immensely slow but far far less fallible thinking, which we call
science.  When you think scientifically, you think slowly, meticulously,
tediously, proving everything, taking nothing for granted.... but your
results are very very very solid.

Perhaps an ideal auxlang of this kind is similar -- you communicate with
far less wild efficiency than normal communication, but it's much much
more difficult to be misunderstood.

You can make choices like that in ordinary conversation in a natlang,
too... how much are you going to spell out?  How much trouble are you
willing to go to to make sure there is *no confusion*?  It's a
tradeoff.... efficiency for reliability.

Hmmm... thinking aloud here.



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