From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Jun 27 05:16:19 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:16:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1I3WRU-0004Y4-FU for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:16:18 -0700 Received: from mclmx2.mail.saic.com ([149.8.64.32] ident=[U2FsdGVkX196dOZIAvsynOW3vicT+KRykZnW326dvfo=]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1I3WRH-0004Xa-HQ for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:16:14 -0700 Received: from 0015-its-ieg01.mail.saic.com ([149.8.64.21] [149.8.64.21]) by mclmx2.mail.saic.com id BT-MMP-222586 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:15:48 -0400 Received: from 0015-ITS-EXBH01.us.saic.com ([10.43.229.18]) by 0015-its-ieg01.mail.saic.com (SMSSMTP 4.0.5.66) with SMTP id M2007062708154714053 for ; Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:15:47 -0400 Received: from 0456-its-exmp01.us.saic.com ([10.75.0.188]) by 0015-ITS-EXBH01.us.saic.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.1830); Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:15:48 -0400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: I'm... My name's... Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:15:47 -0400 Message-Id: <1189A858F8918F43BE3F9C7603C73FB4031E7E12@0456-its-exmp01.us.saic.com> In-Reply-To: <1182925611.4682032bb455b@ssl0.ovh.net> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: [lojban-beginners] Re: I'm... My name's... Thread-Index: Ace4hTVpcbCRpUSXRG2iXqcQoZsd7gAJO4Cg From: "Turniansky, Michael [UNK]" To: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 27 Jun 2007 12:15:48.0149 (UTC) FILETIME=[E526AE50:01C7B8B4] X-Spam-Score: 0.1 X-Spam-Score-Int: 1 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 5161 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners Periods in lojban much the same purpose as punctuation in any other language -- They convey non-semantic nuances. Would you tell someone learning English that they should no longer have commas, semicolons, dashes, hyphens, question marks, exclmation points, etc., etc., etc., (or for that matter capital letters?) since a period could convey any important information? (Or: "Would you tell someone learning english that they should no longer have commas semicolons dashes hyphens question marks exclamation points etc etc etc or for that matter capital letters since a period could convey any importnat information.") Just like a comma in English tells a person where to pause, a question mark indicates a rising intonation and longer pause, and captial letters mark off proper nouns, but convey absolutely zero information on how to say the given word, so too a perios in lojban conveys: "pause". If you don't use spaces in your lojban, you must use periods whereappropirate (leblabi.gerku.nemicuklama.lezarci), but if you use spaces you don't need them. However (and again, I harken back to the Hebrew), they are the MOST useful for a beginner, so that they understand where pauses must come in speech. Look for example, at the first picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud . The parts in red are vowel signs. The parts in blue are the traditional musical notes for reading the phrase from a Torah scroll. Neither appear in the torah scroll itself. So how do you know the first word is pronounced (using lojban orthography) as "vai,iomer" and not "vi,amar", "voi,emur", "vei,ia,umir" etc. etc. which are all theoretically possible pronunciations? You know because of the grammar of Hebrew. But when you are LEARNING it, you need to have those vowel signs, so you can speak it properly. Similarly, while the periods aren't necessarily necessary to write in lojban, because the grammar forces the pause to be there when you speak it, they are good as learning tools. So all beginning level lojban texts should have them. Casual texts and texts for advanaced readers don't need them, although they may show up (especially in the word ".i" which has a nice isographic correspondence with ithe Indo-European period/full stop.) --gejyspa -----Original Message----- From: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org [mailto:lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org] On Behalf Of m.kornig@sondal.net Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 2:27 AM To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: I'm... My name's... Selon "Turniansky, Michael \\[UNK\\]" : > Periods are _always_ optional to WRITE, If this is true then maybe you don't need periods at all? Then why not cancel the peiod from the Lojban alphabet? This would have the following advantages: (1) The alphabet would be simpler (and easier to learn). (2) Lojban texts in general would become a bit shorter. (3) Learners would not be confused about the presence or absence of periods any more. Martin