Subject: RE: zi'o & otpi (was: RE: [lojban] So, wait til you feel a cold no-nose

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 02:08:31 +0100

Jorge:
> la and cusku di'e
> 
> >The language
> >will either be defined by usage, in which case its grammar will
> >be relatively vague and indeterminate, or it will be defined by
> >formal documentation, in which case usage will largely be
> >irrelevant.
> 
> In some cases formal documentation may follow usage. Suppose
> that in 2015 someone decides to publish a Lojban
> dictionary and instead of just taking them from the gismu
> list, for the gismu places they ask a panel of 100 fluent
> Lojbanists about some place structures that they're not
> too sure about. They ask what they think are the
> place structures without looking them up. Then if there
> is enough agreement among the speakers on a place structure
> different than the gihuste's they print that preferred
> place structure. If the dictionary becomes authoritative
> it would be a definition by formal documentation based
> on usage.
> 
> >(Presumably, until computers are as intelligent as
> >people, computers would have to speak the formally documented
> >version.)
> 
> Computers can't speak any version at all for the moment,
> so there is time to document the actually used version
> if it differs from what is defined.

I agree.

> >So better than zi'oing off unwanted places, or pretending they're
> >not there, is to use some alternative brivla. If VCCV fu'ivla
> >really are kosher then they are an attractive solution, since
> >they're even shorter than gismu,
> 
> They are not very attractive to me, and the shortness is
> more than compensated by the obligatory preceding pause.

Or glottal stop. Following a vowel-final word the glottal stop actually
makes it easier to say, for me. And consonant final words have to be
followed by a pause anyway.

> >So, for example, if you want a word for
> >"bottle such that something actually is a bottle even when
> >it's empty", then you could use "otpi" (with, in lujvo, the
> >same rafsi as "botpi"). If "otpi" were as well-documented as
> >"botpi", it'd stand a chance of competing against it in usage,
> >and then usage really would tell you which was the more popular.
> 
> "otpi" would probably only be used to mean "empty bottle",
> because there is a much better alternative for non-empty
> ones.

Probably. And equally probably, people won't be too fussed about
x2 of botpi, & will blithely describe empty bottles as botpi, in
cases where the emptiness is not foregrounded.

--And.