From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun May 20 13:57:51 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Sun, 20 May 2007 13:57:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HpsTO-0007Ii-Rn for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Sun, 20 May 2007 13:57:51 -0700 Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HpsTO-0007Ib-73 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Sun, 20 May 2007 13:57:50 -0700 Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 13:57:50 -0700 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: distinction between gismu & cmavo Message-ID: <20070520205750.GM7871@digitalkingdom.org> References: <2f91285f0705201027w32358e69v3e6093496d67cc5d@mail.gmail.com> <20070520174103.GK7871@digitalkingdom.org> <2f91285f0705201200m2d51977av421055dead3bffbb@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <2f91285f0705201200m2d51977av421055dead3bffbb@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 4549 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 08:00:42PM +0100, Vid Sintef wrote: > Thank you Robin. It's great to have a reply from someone like you. > Just to further improve my understanding of it: > > cmavo is explained to be a "structure word" (on the word lists, > for example), which is confusing to me because gismu seems to have > stronger characteristics of that word which realizes a certain > structural relationship between other words. They alter the grammatical nature of the sentence, rather than providing actual content. brivla (of which gismu are a type) are like English nounds, adjectives and adverbs. cmevla (name words) are proper names. cmavo are everything else; articles, conjunctions, and so on. > Those conjunction cmavo like {e} or {joi}, as Pierre has pointed > out, yes I can recognize their structural functions; but as to > {mi} or {do}, how come they are called "structure words"? It's really best to not use English terms when discussing Lojban grammar. They are cmavo that can take the place of a sumti. > And also there're rafsi's and gismu's given meanings, "affix" and > "root word", respectively; to me it is cmavo which seems to be an > "affix" more than rafsi does, and rafsi to be a "root word" more > than gismu does. Can I have a nice explanation for this, or is it > some historical thing concerning Loglan? Huh? rafsi are affixes because you join them together to make longer words. They are not words in themselves; they cannot be spoken as single words. I don't get how you see rafsi as root words, as they are not words at all. gismu are called root words because they are the roots of meaning in the language (discounting fu'ivla). But again, it's really best to not use English terms when describing/discussing Lojban words; they are what they are, and there mostly aren't any direct English equivalents. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/ Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!" Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/