From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Aug 19 08:12:21 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E68Xc-0001If-Qt for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:20 -0700 Received: from zproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.162.199]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E68XY-0001IV-OJ for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:20 -0700 Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id 13so426036nzp for ; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:15 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=V+g+re5jPV+Brno19SAxre9iUFqO+21dP2PDgLEb0YsvqfbqXjBQNOgpJcwxzb0CHNJvmI/GTKiBZ3evKA4hEOnFXsYUCXZ2KDpkc60l/WUzhkOCYp3doxxxBMNTKLlFJDLPw1NoG0QZVtTVHMTJKp7VQ3Z/5U2T1OSln0a480o= Received: by 10.36.148.16 with SMTP id v16mr2451903nzd; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.67.6 with HTTP; Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:12:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <737b61f30508190812a3b277d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 10:12:15 -0500 From: Chris Capel To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: zgana, viska, catlu In-Reply-To: <2d3df92a0508190134363dd206@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <2d3df92a0508190134363dd206@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 1786 X-Approved-By: pdf23ds@gmail.com X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: pdf23ds@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners On 8/19/05, HeliodoR wrote: > Couldn't we use only one of the above root-words (since they have quite the > same origin: visual observing) together with some cmavo? On the contrary, zgana doesn't require *visual* observing at all. You'll note that the third place of zgana is for the senses/tools used to observe x2. > Like this: > zgana - 'sudden viska' Doesn't appear to be the sense of viska at all. On the contrary, zgana to me implies a more drawn out and detailed observing than either catlu or viska, and includes observing through different channels. > catlu - 'intentional viska' English has both "look" and "see". {catlu} seems to be "look", and "viska" see. The distinction is much used in English, and is therefore probably useful in lojban as well. "intentional viska" does seem to get the sense pretty well, though. > So catlu & zgana crossed out and everything still may be expressed; and this > isn't the only case where a whole kit of root-words describing nearly the > same meaning exists. There is indeed some extra-ness in the gismu list, it seems to me, but I don't think this is the best example of it. Myself, I wonder why {kucli} and {cinri} are both necessary, as they seem to be the same word with the places reversed, with no semantic difference between them at all. (Except maybe that kucli implies more of a curiosity than cinri, but then why are the places reversed?) And I tend to wonder why the "by standard" place is necessary in so many words, when a single cmavo could replace all of them and more. (Is there even a cmavo for "by standard"?) Oh, and the "observer" place alternates often between the first, second, and third places, sometimes without any apparent reason. You used logflash to learn the list, and so you aren't familiar with the place structure of each word. I'm using Supermemo and learning the entire place structure of each word as I go along. (I'm reformatting and adding information when there is some information in the notes for that gismu about the meaning of the word. I find it's not too much information at all. The place structures tend to be intuitive, with a couple exceptions.) The place structure gives some important clues and direction about the meaning of the word, and so many of these close words are less close than they look from their woefully general glosses. > Having an extra gismu for versions of a word seems pointless to me. The point of the gismu list was to make lujvo in general as concise as possible, not put the maximum semantic distance between each gismu. Conceptual purity in an area as messy as a base vocabulary list is less prudent than the more practical considerations of building a concise and useful vocabulary. While it may be a bit more difficult to learn, if it ends up helping the fluent speaker to express themself more concisely, clearly, and subtly, it might be worth the tradeoff. And in any case the gismu list is completely frozen for all eternity (until language drift kicks in) so no complaining etc. etc. I think it's still a much better situation than any other language. Though questions about it are always welcome! Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)