From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Oct 26 09:05:28 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IlRgd-0002s9-Fc for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:27 -0700 Received: from nz-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.162.235]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IlRgb-0002ru-22 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:27 -0700 Received: by nz-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id s18so855323nze for ; Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:22 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=0CEunFkE4CiOTk1qoZL/zombyWYIb9t99c65bK8qqO8=; b=RXbOf2UA5jMoEAPKELdk3SX/k7zfRaG0PEUTLeVXbT/Dk23jONmLJBzxlwOuWbQEAGa+We/9Kbf2oASDi+pjWcVZo/Qd1IqA+bfQBB349DsqSBp6wot+QuPsF899L0NRRUfeskig0WMWEyIzlq885RgCDe+Y1VBowPpMm2wUK/o= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=G7j7tv6v8c55cZXhVfgu1TVHGhk4UA/006II8Q0+f6MXYr2WHG3wTbpsUk4K5ca6gWxAdHkCpHqBqNTeRnIyqs37TbOYZYyxwEIdUv1bHCI37Z0U7jEctylF6+RXqrvGaPM5DA8h3zSXwI8siQNFjHepXDYCRDZO/3EpoLL24Yk= Received: by 10.142.86.7 with SMTP id j7mr924965wfb.1193414721213; Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.107.8 with HTTP; Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:21 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <975a94850710260905u5d0dc9ddw77a85a78aa082c04@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:05:21 -0700 From: "Joel Shellman" To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: geodesic dome In-Reply-To: <4721E54F.7070001@lojban.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <821531.97363.qm@web27709.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <2204fa080710250218g1d01c396gc2cffe2594094d0a@mail.gmail.com> <47209CB8.8070703@lojban.org> <975a94850710250956t2cd0e855ncce7c1681ff719e2@mail.gmail.com> <4720DEC4.3040806@lojban.org> <975a94850710251146g2f1cb00eka98d0ec87c02ae3b@mail.gmail.com> <47210CF9.9010906@lojban.org> <975a94850710251510h57f6d0d1ue3d900ca8b7369f9@mail.gmail.com> <4721E54F.7070001@lojban.org> X-Spam-Score: -0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 5682 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jshellman@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On 10/26/07, Robert LeChevalier wrote: > Joel Shellman wrote: > > eg. "a spherish stonish-substance building used for residence"--a good > > chance it means monolithic dome home. (though if it's specifically > > sphere-ish and not ellipsoid, that wouldn't necessarily be accurate). > > > > It seems to me that rekyboldi'u should mean exactly what it says--any > > spher-ish frame-ish building. > > That is one philosophy of lujvo-making, but it leads to very long lujvo, > possibly with lots of extraneous places if you follow jvojva rules. > Zipf's law implies that such is inappropriate for concepts that see a > lot of use. Yes, but don't we do this sort of thing all the time: "So here on our right is a nice geodesic dome. The dome is blah blah. When someone goes in the dome blah blah." So, the specific word is used initially to create context, and the general term is then used after that since it's obvious what is being referenced. And that initial "word" might be a whole phrase (as it is in English). That said, I think we might be talking past each other a little. I think you're specifically talking about word creation, and I'm just thinking a little more generally. So... just like motorcross biking is two words, maybe in that example, you wouldn't create a lujvo that means the specific "motorcross biking" concept, but rather use a phrase. Perhaps I'm thinking of someone creating a word on the fly... I'm gathering that is unlikely, though, so probably not a useful point of discussion. > I do favor the use of short general lujvo when indeed there are likely > to be multiple longer concepts that will be made from it. I don't think > that applies here. There are rather limited numbers of dome structures, I'd say there's a fair number of domes... > fewer still whose frame-structure is an important part of the concept. But yes, rather limited on the special frame part... > Of those, only geodesic domes are a sufficiently coherent concept that > we would plausibly consider a single word for that concept. For the > other sorts of domes I mentioned, I would likely include a hint at their > function in a lujvo, because its dome-nature stems from that function. Ok. > > If context is insufficient, the speaker > > should use a more specific lujvo, or explain further. > > That is fine for a lengthy academic discussion, but not for ordinary > conversation. But as I mentioned earlier--don't we do this in conversation all the time. Use a specific term/phrase initially and then a shorter general term that obviously refers to it. "Fred is the fastest motorcross biker in the world. Biking is blah blah and his bike is blah blah..." Without the initial more specific term, we wouldn't know what kind of biking we're talking about--but later on, we can use the short general term and it's still clear. > >>Some have attempted to devise conventions for predicting the place > >>structures (jvojva), but those conventions are not fully deterministic, > > > > It seems to me this would be an obstacle to creating a general > > programmatic parsing/"comprehension" of the langauge. If there is no > > deterministic way of figuring out the place meanings... > > Obviously, one would have to build a dictionary into a program. > Programmatic lujvo would mean you would only need gismu and fu'ivla in > that dictionary, but since fu'ivla are an open-ended set, you haven't > really simplified the problem. So there is no advantage for the > computability aspect. I would expect lujvo generation to occur much more often than fu'ivla addition. Oh, and fu'ivla follow specific rules, right? So being open ended doesn't matter--they're still recognizable, aren't they? It just seemed to me really interesting that with a very small core dictionary, one could potentially comprehend to a certain level (obviously not perfectly) nearly the whole language. Have to think about that some more... > If most people follow jvojva completely or approximately for most > lujvo-making, then it does reduce the learning curve. But learning to > use the jvojva themselves is hardly a beginner concept, since even the > most skilled users of the language haven't mastered the practice. Okay, one more--if one did follow the lujvo-making rules/conventions, would the place structure be deterministic then? If so... once could consider that there is a "form" of the language (that which follows those rules) that is completely computable from no more than the root words (excluding fu'ivla which are inherently exceptions, so that's ok). Thanks!