The Quandary about xorlo
Let me lay out my quandary.
For all I know, xorlo may be a highly desirable
way to transform Lojban. It may solve many known
or previously unknown problems in earlier Lojban
and do so without introducing any new problems of
its own. It may make Lojban as a language for
use much smoother and moore elegant and
transparent (and whatever other virtues you want
here). For all I know.
But all I know is what I read here (together with
some recollections of discussions stretching back
through several years). I have asked for more,
making explicit requests, asking particular
questions. But I have not received answers --
often none at all, occssionally inadequate ones
that merely raised more questions.
So what I am left with is what emerges here
willy-nilly. And that comes down at the moment
to a small number of points:
1) It is in xorlo easier to say "two groups of
three broda each" and harder to say "two of the
three broda," though the latter appears to be
the more common expression and the former had a
transparent expression before — and of Zipfily
appropriate size.
2) In xorlo the marking of opaque contexts is no
longer obligatory as it was in older Lojban (at
the risk of misspeaking). Whether this amounts
to saying that there are no opaque contexts (as
sometimes appears) or that we can tell which is
meant from context with such a high level of
success that the extra fillip is unnecessary is
unclear. The first is clearly false; the second
seems to be so, given how frequent the errors
were when the marking was required.
3) To make xorlo a coherent system requires Mr.
Potato-head or some equivalent — to bridge the
gap between opaque and transparent contexts if
nothing else. But just what Mr. PH is or how it
works is not clear in the beginning and has not
been clarified since. We are just assure that it
does work the way required. But there are two
thoudnad years and more of philosophy and logic
on the side that nothing does all this. To be
sure, in most places what is said about Mr. PH
fit known structures: batches, mereological sums,
species — but there is always a further step
they cannot follow but that, we are told, Mr.H
does.
4) On the side of elegance, all that has
apperared so are a) that we don't need to worry
about opaque contexts any more (which is nice
because many of us never did get them right) and
b) that a mass of improper Lojban (perhaps the
greater part of what we have that has any claim
to be Lojban) is proper xorlo. b is clearly the
best argument so far for xorlo but does not seem
to me to be enough, especially for something that
calls itself a logical language (even if in a
very restricted way).
So, once again, will someone please lead me out
of this quandary onto the side of xorlo, or, if
that is impossible because the objections here
are true, fix xorlo in some minimal way to avoid
the objections.