The global problem of mirror paired predicates

[Gleki Arxokuna]

There are several pairs of predicates that can be expressed in a different way.

1. left - right

2. south - north

3. east - west

4. female - male

5. white - black

6. expensive - cheap

7. healthy - ill

8. good - bad

Some conlangs like Esperanto have only one root for each pair and use prefixes (e.g. "anti-") to express the second member of the set.

So 

left = anti-right

ill =  anti-healthy

or

patro - father

patrino - mother (suffix -in- for females)

Ithkuil employs a different approach. It uses two affixes, something like "plus" and "minus" to determine where on the scale we are present.

so e.g. we have a root for "good/bad" (let it be ROOT1) and for  "left-right" (let it be ROOT2) and mark them with prefixes.

good = plus-ROOT1

bad = minus-ROOT2

right = plus-ROOT1

left = minus-ROOT2

If such policy applied in Lojbanistan left-handed people would definitely leave the community as "minus" prefix is associated both with "bad" and "left hand".

Somehow we must choose what is positive and what is negative.

Therefore I state that

AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.

The only way to be culturally neutral is the policy of many natural languages, i.e. having two separate words for each member of the pair.

In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.

Note that even in Esperanto separate root appeared for cheap instead of just "anti-expensive" which proves that such policy is naturalistic.

(This message appeared after discussing "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" concepts in a separate topic that in my opinion also deserve separate words).

Other solutions are culturally non-neutral.

Almost every person belongs  to some social minority: left-handed minority, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities. But together they constitute MAJORITY of the population.

In other words only the current policy of Lojban is best.

Yes, two separate words instead of one+affix is the cost of such neutrality.

(If you wanna be non-neutral please use {tolpritu} instead of {zunle}, it's absolutely not a problem).

[Jorge Llambías]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 7:08 AM, Gleki Arxokuna
<gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.

[...]

> In other words only the current policy of Lojban is best.

It's not such a strict policy though. Many gismu that could have had
an obvious antonym don't have it: melbi, citno, cladu, jinga, cirko,
cinri, zdile, canci, cliva, claxu, cfari, and so on.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

[Gleki Arxokuna]

This is where will be no conflict between

1. Let usage decide

2. Lojban must be strictly regulated.

If future fluent speakers feel the need in separate words they will introduce them without breaking the design of the language.

[Gleki Arxokuna]

Sorry, there was a mistake.

Correct text:

good = plus-ROOT1

bad = minus-ROOT1

right = plus-ROOT2

left = minus-ROOT2

[iesk]

Le vendredi 10 août 2012 12:08:17 UTC+2, Gleki Arxokuna a écrit :

There are several pairs of predicates that can be expressed in a different way.

1. left - right

2. south - north

3. east - west

4. female - male

5. white - black

6. expensive - cheap

7. healthy - ill

8. good - bad

Some conlangs like Esperanto have only one root for each pair and use prefixes (e.g. "anti-") to express the second member of the set.

So 

left = anti-right

ill =  anti-healthy

or

patro - father

patrino - mother (suffix -in- for females)

I don’t think Esperanto scholars or speakers would consider patro—patrino a scale. Esperanto just lacks a +MASCULIN suffix (thus, it is a feminist language q.e.d. – just kidding), and *usage decides* that some roots are inherently male, most of the time, and some are not.


 

Ithkuil employs a different approach. It uses two affixes, something like "plus" and "minus" to determine where on the scale we are present.

so e.g. we have a root for "good/bad" (let it be ROOT1) and for  "left-right" (let it be ROOT2) and mark them with prefixes.

good = plus-ROOT1

bad = minus-ROOT2

right = plus-ROOT1

left = minus-ROOT2

If such policy applied in Lojbanistan left-handed people would definitely leave the community as "minus" prefix is associated both with "bad" and "left hand".

That is a bold prediction. I guess the author of Ithkuil who put those scales on paper writes from left to right and is an optimist. ;) I don’t know much about Ithkuil, though.
 

Somehow we must choose what is positive and what is negative.

Therefore I state that

AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.

The only way to be culturally neutral is the policy of many natural languages, i.e. having two separate words for each member of the pair.

In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.

Note that even in Esperanto separate root appeared for cheap instead of just "anti-expensive" which proves that such policy is naturalistic.

Note how little use is made of most of those ersatz words in actual usage.
 

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

> *AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT
> CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.*

> The only way to be culturally neutral is the policy of many natural
> languages, i.e. having two separate words for each member of the pair.
> In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.
> Note that even in Esperanto separate root appeared for cheap instead of
> just "anti-expensive" which proves that such policy is naturalistic.
>
> (This message appeared after discussing "clockwise" and
> "counterclockwise" concepts in a separate topic that in my opinion also
> deserve separate words).
>
> Other solutions are culturally non-neutral.
> Almost every person belongs to some social minority: left-handed
> minority, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities. But together they
> constitute MAJORITY of the population.
>
> In other words only the current policy of Lojban is best.
> Yes, two separate words instead of one+affix is the cost of such neutrality.
> (If you wanna be non-neutral please use {tolpritu} instead of {zunle},
> it's absolutely not a problem).

I feel compelled to note, in light of your comments on the attitudinal
system not being mapped to gismu, that we intentionally DID use scales
and oppositional mapping for the attitudinals, knowing that what we were
doing was not especially "neutral", and that the gismu were NOT
necessarily scalar in the same way. But it wasn't really a question of
"cultural neutrality" per se, since so far as I know, no other
language/culture attempts to map attitudes in any way like what we did
in Lojban.

But in as much as some emotions require nai in order to be expressed and
others do not (We didn't have the wordspace to *not* make use of
opposition scales), it is arguable that Zipfean factors might cause bias
towards the shorter words (whether Zipf's law might work to this effect
is of course entirely hypothetical), and I chose the shorter ones to
therefore be emotions that I thought were the more basic, or possibly
the more positive/beneficial of the pairings in question. If there has
to be a bias, it might as well be a positive one.

But who am I to dictate what emotions are "positive"? Just the guy who
concocted the system. I make no apologies %^)

--
Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

[Jonathan Jones]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 4:08 AM, Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT .... NEUTRAL.

Gleki, I agree about the mentioned practices not being neutral, but it's not cultural.

Cultural neutrality means not biasing words, grammar, etc. in favor of any one culture. As in, not using words which are too Australian, or forming sentences in a manner too Asian. (I'm trying to use examples which don't potentially confuse language with culture.)

IFF we had chosen to not have a word meaning "left", but instead decided to use {to'e pritu}, then yes, it would not have been a neutral move on our part. However, it would not be a CULTURALLY-biased move. Right-handed people vastly outnumber left-handed people in /every/ culture throughout the world, so obviously right-handedness is not a /cultural/ bias.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[And Rosta]

For some scales, the polarity is not an arbitrary choice but an intrinsic corollary of the nature of the scale. E.g. long is positive, short is negative, and you can see this from comparing "It's long on length" (= it's long) and "it's short on shortness" (= long), i.e. two negatives make a positive. And the positive has much length and the negative little. Where the scale is itself negative, as with near:far, the amount of being away from (not at) something, the negative member is the one with more of the negative property, so near is pos and far is neg: "it's near to being near" vs "it's far from being far" (= it's near).

A language ought to reflect this sort of logical patterning in predicates.

For your 8 examples
> 1. left - right

no polarity

> 2. south - north

no polarity

> 3. east - west

no polarity

> 4. female - male

no polarity. But if female:male is understood as concave:convex (as in terminology of cable connectors), male is pos and female is neg.

> 5. white - black

clearly it can have polarity, but it depends on whether the scale is defined as degree of whiteness or degree of blackness; either way, grey is in the middle

> 6. expensive - cheap

you'd expect expensive to be pos, but I can't think of a double neg example to prove this

> 7. healthy - ill

healthy pos, ill neg, tho I can't think of probative example

> 8. good - bad

"bad at being bad at it" (= good at) proves that "bad" is neg in at least this sense

--And.


Gleki Arxokuna, On 10/08/2012 11:08:

> *AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.*

> The only way to be culturally neutral is the policy of many natural languages, i.e. having two separate words for each member of the pair.
> In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.
> Note that even in Esperanto separate root appeared for cheap instead of just "anti-expensive" which proves that such policy is naturalistic.
>
> (This message appeared after discussing "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" concepts in a separate topic that in my opinion also deserve separate words).
>
> Other solutions are culturally non-neutral.
> Almost every person belongs to some social minority: left-handed minority, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities. But together they constitute MAJORITY of the population.
>
> In other words only the current policy of Lojban is best.
> Yes, two separate words instead of one+affix is the cost of such neutrality.
> (If you wanna be non-neutral please use {tolpritu} instead of {zunle}, it's absolutely not a problem).
>
>
>
>

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