From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Apr 15 02:22:26 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1JlhMw-00014U-Cb for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:26 -0700 Received: from ag-out-0708.google.com ([72.14.246.241]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1JlhMm-00011c-Mn for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:26 -0700 Received: by ag-out-0708.google.com with SMTP id 5so3567125agb.7 for ; Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:15 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=xPOihEnHgnb5C8xCnvqMdbYsT26Y+dIrBpqx/FQZdZU=; b=f+xaYG3BB3zF6DuosVOBxak5cwRLq3JMbSH+iGDiVFt+AXwniZLq1oTC7TQFEk8sl+JugPj8q2wmY3kLdaR22K1ttGWU/ru596+kBH3+/0HVoXaHw1rrqKg6GyZ574SclGFOiWjeYkwCOEQP6u2iTRCyu2wx7/ub22Q3F8pX83E= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=EJ3OCut+6ufKD3bXOsGLmK2Hy/zZmnDdZnzB7DUjFKePa1CDdlL6LLityi/tdjKtS5kdPxDmVLfD4A1fjPFjAruN0O/q3Bce5MN0iNbEl6c+7G6o5V/vCQB+cPUi25ndVpJklXePTxPbrlEKfHdU/iZyzX89byTdUo8nXIf+CGE= Received: by 10.150.148.7 with SMTP id v7mr7426211ybd.26.1208251335213; Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.150.197.6 with HTTP; Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:22:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:22:15 -0400 From: "Brett Williams" To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: du'e preti In-Reply-To: <3477B383-2CA1-4BE4-AE34-6A50D819EA88@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_524_26935290.1208251335191" References: <3477B383-2CA1-4BE4-AE34-6A50D819EA88@gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 478 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners ------=_Part_524_26935290.1208251335191 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On 4/14/08, Minimiscience wrote: > > I have completed the very excellent *Lojban for Beginners* and looked > through > parts of the Lojban Reference Grammar for elaboration on several topics; > however, I still have quite a number of questions about the Lojban > language: .i'i fi'i These are very interesting questions! What follows are only my opinions. Some questions in Lojban are difficult, and others are unresolved. I have no particular authority. :) > 1. If all of the places of a have been filled, and said > is > nested inside another (e.g., in an abstraction), is it still > necessary to explicitly terminate the nested if it is followe= d > by > a of the main ? Yes. The grammar structures nested bridi without regard to their semantic content or place structure. Note that in most cases it isn't even the nested bridi which is most sensible to terminate. It's usually more clear to terminate the abstractio= n than the bridi it contains. That is: do simlu lo ka mencre vau mi do simlu lo ka mencre kei mi do simlu lo ka mencre ku mi do simlu lo ka (mencre vau) mi do simlu lo (ka mencre kei) mi do simlu (lo ka mencre ku) mi "You seem smart to me." Any of the terminators works grammatically, so we use whichever is clearest. "ku" could be terminating a sumti within the embedded bridi, and it's less clear whether "vau" is terminating the main bridi or an embedded bridi, so in this case it's usual to see "kei". "kei" tells the listener specifically, "I'm done with whatever abstraction I was in the middle of, let's go back to the next higher level of bridi to complete that= ." > 2. How should overlapping places be interpreted? E.g., in " fa > mi ta>," does occupy the second or third place of ? Is > this > sentence even grammatically correct? It's grammatically correct but somewhat discouraged. It's my understanding that the "ta" goes into the same position as the "ti", officially. But if that's what you mean to say, and you'd like to be understood, you would be wiser to add an additional "fe", or much better yet to take care of all of your "fe"s at once, like normal, with ".e" or some other proper connector. :) 3. When joining two with , it doesn't actually seem necessary > to > terminate the former one with . The justification given in the > LRG > (=A714.14) only applies to poorly written parsers without look-ahead > capabilities, which yacc-generated parsers almost certainly are not. > Unless there exists a construct which can be either a or a > simultaneously, is there any good reason why should be > required here? I don't really have an opinion on whether those constructs should be legal, and I don't know why the grammar is written that way. I guess it seems to me that the confusion which might result is that "joi" is used bot= h to join sumti into masses, and to join tanru elements into mixtures. You can say either: lo blanu joi xunre cu klama -- a blue-and-red-combined-thing comes lo blanu ku joi lo xunre cu klama -- a blue thing and a red thing considere= d together come I suppose that a "ku" would be useful for clarity in the second case whethe= r or not it was required. 5. Why can't an elidable terminator be elided when followed by a vocative > phrase (LRG, =A76.11)? As the meaning of a vocative is independent o= f > its > location and has no real bearing on the meaning of the surrounding > , what difference does it make whether or not the elidable > terminator is present? Vocative phrases and UI cmavo can both be put almost anywhere. In the case of UI cmavo it can matter whether or not there is a terminator-- it's generally valid to put the UI whether or not the terminator is there, but i= t can have slight variations of meaning. I'm not sure if anyone's thought to care about those variations as far as COI. COI cmavo are rarely used with = a bridi at all these days, in my experience. There has been some experimentation with COI recently: One trend, which I personally enjoy, is spelling "coi" as "cccccccccccccoi". There's also a trend of combining attitudinals with COI, like ".ui nai co'o" or ".ue coi", sometimes even wit= h "zei" like ".iu zei fi'i". > 6. When a has internal and/or a relative clause attached > to > it, does its terminating (if present) belong before or after the > internal or clause? By internal sumti you mean "be" "bei" "be'o" linked sumti? Things linked with "be" are part of the sumti description, and come inside of the "ku". NOI linked clauses can attach in several locations: "the dog which is blue eats": lo gerku poi blanu ku cu citka lo gerku ku poi blanu cu citka lo poi blanu ku'o gerku cu citka A NOI phrase should be thought of as another bridi, which is being connecte= d to this bridi via a connection point at a sumti. There's various ways you can attach it to the sumti, and it's really neither inside nor outside of the sumti-- it's another bridi, grammatically wedged in, which happens to share a referent with the higher-level bridi. In the case of "noi" the other bridi doesn't even have a semantic effect on the higher-level bridi-- it just happens to be hanging out there. 7. Can the terminator "" be applied to discursive introduced > with ""? I don't believe so. "sei" introduces a bridi-tail, not a full bridi. It's the same structure as after the word "lo": you have to bring any additional sumti into the embedded bridi with "be" "bei" "be'o". I wasn't around when these design decisions were being made, but to me the rationale seems prett= y obvious: In cases where you're more likely to need a complex phrase (nu, noi), you get to add sumti for free, but you often have to pay the price of a terminator. In cases where you're more likely to want to move on after saying the selbri (sei, lo), you get to move on to another sumti of the higher-level bridi for free, but you need to pay a few syllables to tie in an extra sumti to the lower-level bridi. There is the terminator "se'u" for "sei", which is rarely needed but could help provide clarity. :) 8. How do you state that someone said a string of non-grammatical words > that > include "" but not "" or ""? zo zoi can quote anything. zo zoi is all-powerful. zoi gugliplapanukik. = I can say anything in here except gugliplapanu.. oops! .gugliplapanukik. cuns= o cmevla mupli In reality most Lojbanists are not computers, and use a wide variety of quoting methods both formally and informally. There is a tradition for instance of quoting Lojban in curly quotes: {broda} which I believe originated in trying to disambiguate while giving definitions of words: {mi} is "me" and {do} is "you" is less confusing than "mi" is "me" and "do" is "you" There was a fascinating discussion about experimental correction cmavo between eimi and dbrock on IRC recently, which used lo'u/le'u extensively i= n quotes about quotes and hurt my brain. (to .io sai doi re za'e tcecre jbopre toi) Generally speaking, though, most such complicated conversations still happen using mostly English and {[(graphcial quotes)}}. 9. After uttering an empty ZOI or LOhU construct, if one were to erase it > with s, would it be necessary to utter a for the empty quote= d > text? I'm going to say [pe'iru'e] no. "si" erases words, and an empty space, while semantically meaningful, is not a word. In practice, if you're erasing more than a simple word or two, I suggest saying "sa". :) 10. What pro- should be used to refer to the speaker and only a few > of > many listeners? Tricky. I would go with "mi'a". Like if I'm talking to la .pav. and la .rel. and la .cib., and calling all three of them "do", and I'm using a pro-sumti for something that I'm doing along with la .cib., I think that "mi'a" would make sense because the "other than mi or do" referent of the "mi'a" is la .cib. goi cy., who is different as a referent from the current "do" even though cy. is a part of that "do". In any even vaguely complicated situation I suggest introducing absolute clarity with "goi". Lojban's assignable prosumti are far more versatile and stable than pronouns. You can assign a prosumti to a tricky concept like "myself and those of you listening who like cucumbers", just throw that up into zo xy. or zo zy., and then have it at hand later-- how much later depending on how memorable you can make it to your listener-- so you can simply say "well, I think that zy. will like the salad today..." > 11. Can be used to say that one invented a physical device (whic= h > would seem to contrast with its other translations)? If not, what > word > should be used? If yes, how can one distinguish invention of a > physical > device from composition of literature, music, et cetera? I would say that [lo'e se finti] (the sort of thing that goes into the second place of "finti") is an idea. It could be an idea about how to make a physical object, or an idea about what notes to play, or what words to put into a poem. It would make sense to distinguish different kinds of invention by different lujvo built on "finti", and indeed we have been given a good word-ending rafsi "fi'i" for such a purpose. dairfi'i, dacti zei finti, object invent, could perhaps mean to invent an object. ca'arfi'i, cabra ze= i finti, device invent, could perhaps mean to invent a device. > > > 14. I am quite certain that I once read somewhere that the spaces in > Lojban > text are unnecessary and that words can be unambiguously determined > from > the text without them; however, I cannot find where I read this (if > ever), > and the issues raised in the next three questions seem to go against > that > claim. Hence, just to be clear, are the spaces in Lojbanic text > optional > & unnecessary? Do the claim that Lojban sounds can be broken up into > words in exactly one way and the audio-visual isomorphism of the > language > together imply that written Lojban does not change when the spaces ar= e > removed? How does the answer to this interact with the below three > queries? You need either spaces or accents in order for written text to be unambiguous. You could alternately think of accents as being the "real" quality which must be marked, and note that if you put spaces between the words you can place the accents simply by putting them on the penultimate syllables. You can write unambiguous Lojban text by capitalizing accented vowels: "miprAmila.lOjban.noimElbibAnguzi'enoipubAngula.lOkadin." This style is popularly associated with a Lojbanist who I believe is named "l0kadin". 15. According to the Lojban Reference Grammar, chapter 4, section 9, item > 5, > any monosyllabic before a must be followed by a > pause, > yet this would require an inordinate amount of pauses to be inserted > into > text. By "pause," does the LRG mean a , in which case why > has > no one been following this rule, or does it mean a space, in which > case > how does this interact with Lojban's claims of audio-visual > isomorphism > and that sounds can be divided into words in only one way? This rule applies only if the cmavo in question is stressed. In normal speech, cmavo are not stressed, but it's possible you might want to stress = a cmavo for emphasis (in conjunction with "ba'e", pe'u) or clarity. So if yo= u stress a cmavo, you should also pause afterwards-- this helps with the emphasis, as well. :) 16. Section 17.4 of the LRG states that the spaces in and bu> are mandatory to avoid confusion with , yet the rules fo= r > explicitly prohibit compounds of & . Why is > the > former restriction there? This has to do with accent, which the spaces indirectly represent. :) "dEnpabu" and "slAkabu" are a gismu followed by a cmavo, while "denpAbu" and "slakAbu" are (unused) fu'ivla. 18. When the LRG states that all are emphasised on the penultimat= e > syllable, is it merely repeating a consequence of the pronunciation > rules, > or is it indirectly requiring that the penultimate syllable of a > > not contain a syllabic consonant or "y"? If the former, wouldn't it > be > simpler for it to just state that must have at least two > syllables? Brivla are the only words which are required to hold stress. You can stres= s the first syllable of two-syllable cmavo if you want; it doesn't make any difference. "y" is ignored for the purpose of locating stress in brivla. 19. Exactly what changes to the language have been made since the release > of > *The Complete Lojban Language*/the Lojban Reference Grammar? Does > there > exist a completely up-to-date compilation of all of the rules of > Lojban > grammar (that is at least more user-friendly than that horrendous > tiki)? Lojban is a living language. Changes are made to it every day and then forgotten. Many conventions are not officially recorded anywhere. There i= s a bureaucratic structure which makes official rulings about the language; i= t does not represent everything that is happening in the community. Here's the basics, off the top of my head. xorlo. That is not a gismu. :) That is an English word which is a combination of "xorxes" and "lo", as I understand it. It is supported by many Lojbanists and opposed by others, and has some vague half-official status the details of which escape me. To the extent that anyone has any idea what exactly they mean when they say "le" and "lo" these days, what many people have in mind is xorlo, not the official rules. The largest practical change is that people say "lo re xrula", the two flowers, and the= y don't intend to assert that there exist only two flowers in the universe, which used to be the idea. xorlo is just part of a large ongoing dialogue about the meaning of "le" and "lo". The Dot Side. Those on the Dot Side believe that instead of forbidding the strings "la" "lai" and "doi" from names and allowing a name to follow those strings without a pause, names should be allowed to contain "la" etc and a pause should be required before all names. The Dot Side is not nearly as established as xorlo, but is presently quite popular. Those are the only large heretical movements that I'm familiar with. Fill me in anyone if there's any others; I think it's fascinating. There are also many experimental cmavo, and these days many in active use. The most common are shorthand ways of quoting non-lojban names and words. There are plenty of good experimental cmavo available and there are plenty of experimental jbopre who will give your ideas a go if you think of something interesting. It takes a long time for things to become official, but in the meantime many of us accomplish unofficial communications. ;) I have more questions, but they can be dealt with later. For now, the > answers > to these will be just fine. ki'e te preti I think that questions are as useful as answers. Keep asking anything that's unclear to you & you'll help us all to clarify our language and our explanations. mu'omi'e la'o gy. Minimiscience .gy. > ke'u fi'i ninpre .i ma do lojbo cmene mu'o mi'e .bret. ------=_Part_524_26935290.1208251335191 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On 4/14/08, Minim= iscience <minimiscience@g= mail.com> wrote:
I have completed the very excellent *Lojban for Beginners* and looked throu= gh
parts of the Lojban Reference Grammar for elaboration on several top= ics;
however, I still have quite a number of questions about the Lojban= language:

.i'i fi'i
 
These are very interesting questio= ns!  What follows are only my opinions.  Some questions in Lojban= are difficult, and others are unresolved.  I have no particular autho= rity. :)
 
 
 1. If all of the places of a <bridi> have been filled, and sa= id <bridi> is
    nested inside another <bridi> = (e.g., in an abstraction), is it still
    necessary to expl= icitly terminate the nested <bridi> if it is followed by
    a <sumti> of the main <bridi>?


Yes.  The grammar structures nested bridi without regard to t= heir semantic content or place structure.
 
Note that in most c= ases it isn't even the nested bridi which is most sensible to terminate= .  It's usually more clear to terminate the abstraction than the b= ridi it contains.  That is:
 
do simlu lo ka mencre vau mi
do simlu lo ka mencre kei mi do simlu lo ka mencre ku mi

do simlu lo ka (mencre vau) mi
do = simlu lo (ka mencre kei) mi
do simlu (lo ka mencre ku) mi
 <= br>"You seem smart to me."  Any of the terminators works gr= ammatically, so we use whichever is clearest.  "ku" could be= terminating a sumti within the embedded bridi, and it's less clear whe= ther "vau" is terminating the main bridi or an embedded bridi, so= in this case it's usual to see "kei".  "kei" = tells the listener specifically, "I'm done with whatever abstracti= on I was in the middle of, let's go back to&nb= sp;the next higher level of bridi to com= plete that."
  
 2. How should overlapping places be interpreted?  E.g., in &qu= ot;<fe ti klama fa
    mi ta>," does <ta> o= ccupy the second or third place of <klama>?  Is this
 =   sentence even grammatically correct?


It's grammatically correct but somewhat discouraged.  = ;It's my understanding that the "ta" goes into the same posit= ion as the "ti", officially.  But if that's what you mea= n to say, and you'd like to be understood, you would be wiser to add an= additional "fe", or much better yet to take care of all of your = "fe"s at once, like normal, with ".e" or some other pro= per connector. :)
 

 3. When joining two <sumti> with <joi>, it doesn't = actually seem necessary to
    terminate the former one with= <ku>.  The justification given in the LRG
    (= =A714.14) only applies to poorly written parsers without look-ahead
    capabilities, which yacc-generated parsers almost certainly= are not.
    Unless there exists a construct which can be e= ither a <selbri> or a
    <sumti> simultaneously= , is there any good reason why <ku> should be
    required here?

I don't really have= an opinion on whether those constructs should be legal, and I&nb= sp;don't know why the grammar is written&= nbsp;that way.  I guess it seems to me that the confusion which m= ight result is that "joi" is used both to join sumti into masses,= and to join tanru elements into mixtures.  You can say either:
 
lo blanu joi xunre cu klama -- a blue-and-red-combined-thing come= s
lo blanu ku joi lo xunre cu klama -- a blue thing and a red thing cons= idered together come
 
I suppose that a "ku" would be= useful for clarity in the second case whether or not it was required.


 5. Why can't an elidable terminator be elided when followed by = a vocative
    phrase (LRG, =A76.11)?  As the meaning o= f a vocative is independent of its
    location and has no r= eal bearing on the meaning of the surrounding
    <bridi>, what difference does it make whether or not = the elidable
    terminator is present?

Vocative phrases and UI cmavo can both be put almost anywhere.  I= n the case of UI cmavo it can matter whether or not there is a terminator--= it's generally valid to put the UI whether or not the terminator is th= ere, but it can have slight variations of meaning.  I'm not sure i= f anyone's thought to care about those variations as far as COI.  = COI cmavo are rarely used with a bridi at all these days, in my experience.=  There has been some experimentation with COI recently: One trend, wh= ich I personally enjoy, is spelling "coi" as "ccccccccccccco= i".  There's also a trend of combining attitudinals with COI,= like ".ui nai co'o" or ".ue coi", sometimes even w= ith "zei" like ".iu zei fi'i".  
 
 
 6. When a <sumti> has internal <sumti> and/or a relativ= e clause attached to
    it, does its terminating <ku>= (if present) belong before or after the
    internal <su= mti> or clause?

By internal sumti you mean "be" "bei" "be= 'o" linked sumti?  Things linked with "be" are part= of the sumti description, and come inside of the "ku".
 = ;
NOI linked clauses can attach in several locations:  "the do= g which is blue eats":

lo gerku poi blanu ku cu citka
lo gerku ku poi blanu cu citkalo poi blanu ku'o gerku cu citka

A NOI phrase should be though= t of as another bridi, which is being connected to this bridi via a connect= ion point at a sumti.  There's various ways you can attach it to t= he sumti, and it's really neither inside nor outside of the sumti-- it&= #39;s another bridi, grammatically wedged in, which happens to share a refe= rent with the higher-level bridi.  In the case of "noi" the = other bridi doesn't even have a semantic effect on the higher-level bri= di-- it just happens to be hanging out there.


 7. Can the terminator "<vau>" be applied to discurs= ive <bridi> introduced
    with "<sei>"= ;?


I don't believe so.  "sei" i= ntroduces a bridi-tail, not a full bridi.  It's the same structure= as after the word "lo": you have to bring any additional sumti i= nto the embedded bridi with "be" "bei" "be'o&q= uot;.  I wasn't around when these design decisions were being made= , but to me the rationale seems pretty obvious: In cases where you're m= ore likely to need a complex phrase (nu, noi), you get to add sumti for fre= e, but you often have to pay the price of a terminator.  In cases wher= e you're more likely to want to move on after saying the selbri (sei, l= o), you get to move on to another sumti of the higher-level&= nbsp;bridi for free, but you need to pay a few syllables to tie in an extra= sumti to the lower-level bridi.
 
There is the terminator "se'u" for "sei",= which is rarely needed but could help provide clarity. :)
  =

 8. How do you state that someone said a string of non-grammatical w= ords that
    include "<le'u>" but not &= quot;<zo>" or "<zoi>"?


= zo zoi can quote anything.   zo zoi is all-powerful.  zoi guglipl= apanukik. I can say anything in here except gugliplapanu.. oops! .gugliplap= anukik. cunso cmevla mupli
 
In reality most Lojbanists are not computers, and use a wide = ;variety of quoting methods both formally and informall= y. There is a tradition for instance of quoting Lo= jban in curly quotes: {broda}  which I believ= e originated in trying to disambiguate while giving definitions of words: &= nbsp;{mi} is "me" and {do} is "you"   is less= confusing than   "mi" is "me" and "do&q= uot; is "you"
 
There was a fascinating discussion about experimental correction = cmavo between eimi and dbrock on IRC recently, which used lo'u/le'u= extensively in quotes about quotes and hurt my brain. (to .io sai doi= re za'e tcecre jbopre toi)  Generally speaking, th= ough, most such complicated conversations still happen using mostly En= glish and {[(graphcial quotes)}}.
 

 9. After uttering an empty ZOI or LOhU construct, if one were to er= ase it
    with <si>s, would it be necessary to utter = a <si> for the empty quoted
    text?

I'm going to say [pe'iru'e] no.  "si" erase= s words, and an empty space, while semantically meaningful, is not a word. =
 
In practice, if you're erasing more than a simple word or two= , I suggest saying "sa". :)
 
 10. What pro-<sumti> should be used to refer to the speaker an= d only a few of
    many listeners?

Tricky.  I would go with "mi'a".  Like i= f I'm talking to la .pav. and la&nbs= p;.rel. and la .cib., and calling all th= ree of them "do", and I'm using=  a pro-sumti for something that I'm = doing along with la .cib., I think that&= nbsp;"mi'a" would make sense because = ;the "other than mi or do" referent=  of the "mi'a" 
is la .cib. goi cy., who is different as a referent from the current "= do" even though cy. is a part of that "do".
 
In= any even vaguely complicated situation I suggest introducing absolute clar= ity with "goi".  Lojban's assignable prosumti are far mo= re versatile and stable than pronouns.  = You can assign a prosumti to a tricky&nb= sp;concept like "myself and those of you=  listening who like 
cucumbers", just throw that up into zo xy. or zo zy., and then have it= at hand later-- how much later depending on&= nbsp;how memorable you can make it to yo= ur listener-- so you can simply say &quo= t;well, I think that zy. will like the&n= bsp;salad today..." 
 
 
 11. Can <finti> be used to say that one invented a physical de= vice (which
    would seem to contrast with its other transl= ations)?  If not, what word
    should be used?  I= f yes, how can one distinguish invention of a physical
    device from composition of literature, music, et cetera?


I would say that [lo'e = se finti] (the sort of thing that goes&n= bsp;into the second place of "finti")&nb= sp;is an idea.  It could be an idea=  about how to make a 
physical object, or an idea about what n= otes to play, or 
what words to put&n= bsp;into a poem.  It would make sense&nb= sp;to distinguish different kinds of invention&nbs= p;by different lujvo built on "finti", and indeed we have been gi= ven a good word-ending rafsi "fi'i" for such a purpose.  = ;dairfi'i, dacti zei finti, object invent, could perhaps mean to i= nvent an object.  ca'arfi'i, cabra zei finti, device invent, c= ould perhaps mean to invent a device.
 


 14. I am quite certain that I once read somewhere that the s= paces in Lojban
    text are unnecessary and that words can = be unambiguously determined from
    the text without them; = however, I cannot find where I read this (if ever),
    and the issues raised in the next three questions seem to g= o against that
    claim.  Hence, just to be clear, are= the spaces in Lojbanic text optional
    & unnecessary?=  Do the claim that Lojban sounds can be broken up into
    words in exactly one way and the audio-visual isomorphism o= f the language
    together imply that written Lojban does n= ot change when the spaces are
    removed?  How does th= e answer to this interact with the below three
    queries?


You need either spaces or= accents in order for written text to be unambiguous.  You could = alternately think of accents as being the "real" quality which mu= st be marked, and note that if you put spaces between the words you can pla= ce the accents simply by putting them on the penultimate syllables.
 
You can write unambiguous Lojban text by capitalizing accented vo= wels:  "miprAmila.lOjban.noimElbibAnguzi'enoipubAngula.lOkadi= n."  This style is popularly associated with a Lojbanist who I be= lieve is named "l0kadin". 
 

 15. According to the Lojban Reference Grammar, chapter 4, section 9,= item 5,
    any monosyllabic <cmavo> before a <bri= vla> must be followed by a pause,
    yet this would requ= ire an inordinate amount of pauses to be inserted into
    text.  By "pause," does the LRG mean a <d= enpa bu>, in which case why has
    no one been following= this rule, or does it mean a space, in which case
    how d= oes this interact with Lojban's claims of audio-visual isomorphism
    and that sounds can be divided into words in only one way?<= /blockquote>


This rule applies only if the cmavo in question is= stressed.  In normal speech, cmavo are not stressed, but it's pos= sible you might want to stress a cmavo for emphasis (in conjuncti= on with "ba'e", pe'u) or clarity.  So= if you stress a cmavo, you should also pause afterwards-- this helps with = the emphasis, as well. :)
 

 16. Section 17.4 of the LRG states that the spaces in <denpa bu&g= t; and <slaka
    bu> are mandatory to avoid confusion= with <fu'ivla>, yet the rules for
    <fu'= ivla> explicitly prohibit compounds of <gismu> & <cmavo>= .  Why is the
    former restriction there?

This has to = do with accent, which the spaces indirectly represent. :)  "dEnpa= bu" and "slAkabu" are a gismu followed by a cmavo, while &qu= ot;denpAbu" and "slakAbu" are (unused) fu'ivla.
 

 18. When the LRG states that all <brivla> are emphasised on the= penultimate
    syllable, is it merely repeating a conseque= nce of the pronunciation rules,
    or is it indirectly requ= iring that the penultimate syllable of a <brivla>
    not contain a syllabic consonant or "y"?  If= the former, wouldn't it be
    simpler for it to just s= tate that <brivla> must have at least two
    syllable= s?

Brivla are the only words which are required to hol= d stress.  You can stress the first syllable of two-syllable cmavo if = you want; it doesn't make any difference.  "y" is ignore= d for the purpose of locating stress in brivla.

 

 19. Exactly what changes to the language have been made since the re= lease of
    *The Complete Lojban Language*/the Lojban Refer= ence Grammar?  Does there
    exist a completely up-to-= date compilation of all of the rules of Lojban
    grammar (that is at least more user-friendly than that horr= endous tiki)?


Lojban is a living language.  C= hanges are made to it every day and then forgotten.  Many conventions = are not officially recorded anywhere.  There is a bureaucratic structu= re which makes official rulings about the language; it does not represent e= verything that is happening in the community.
 
Here's the basics, off the top of my head.
 
xorl= o.  That is not a gismu. :)  That is an English word which is a c= ombination of "xorxes" and "lo", as I understand it. &n= bsp;It is supported by many Lojbanists and opposed by others, and has some = vague half-official status the details of which escape me.  To the ext= ent that anyone has any idea what exactly they mean when they say "le&= quot; and "lo" these days, what many people have in mind is xorlo= , not the official rules.  The largest practical change is that people= say "lo re xrula", the two flowers, and they don't intend to= assert that there exist only two flowers in the universe, which used to be= the idea.  xorlo is just part of a large ongoing dialogue about the m= eaning of "le" and "lo".
 
The Dot Side.  Those on the Dot Side believe that instead of= forbidding the strings "la" "lai" and "doi" = from names and allowing a name to follow those strings without a pause, nam= es should be allowed to contain "la" etc and a pause should be re= quired before all names.  The Dot Side is not nearly as established as= xorlo, but is presently quite popular.
 
Those are the only large heretical movements that I'm familia= r with.  Fill me in anyone if there's any others; I think it's= fascinating.
 
There are also many experimental cmavo, and the= se days many in active use.  The most common are shorthand ways of quo= ting non-lojban names and words.  There are plenty of good experimenta= l cmavo available and there are plenty of experimental jbopre who will give= your ideas a go if you think of something interesting.  It takes a lo= ng time for things to become official, but in the meantime many of us accom= plish unofficial communications. ;)

 

I have more questions, but they can be dealt with later.  For now, the= answers
to these will be just fine.


ki'e = te preti
 
I think that questions are as useful as answers. &nb= sp;Keep asking anything that's unclear to you & you'll help us&= nbsp;all to clarify our language and our explanations.
 

mu'omi'e la'o gy. Minimiscience .gy.
 ke'u fi'i ninpre .i ma do lojbo cmene
 
mu'o = mi'e .bret.

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