From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jun 01 12:04:21 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MBCo0-0000Ad-OD for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:21 -0700 Received: from yx-out-1718.google.com ([74.125.44.154]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MBCnt-00008l-S0 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:20 -0700 Received: by yx-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id 36so29736691yxh.46 for ; Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:12 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=ZpjrVRq0lF7y/07PIngNoovUuCDGb4WrWBSTCSBNqjI=; b=F9eMiTJaFgkw6asgg0Vw4NxXZZKiE5OAbI1cCuW203qBo9lAv4/Pn6waxrSSKxKisc IKSkMjdX95jEPVpDnHAbtKoPZRfoh7b6oeHQpkOC1OmXXwYHPiLdS+cW02gg7MNK0Tv5 xJxsuET96rjl8QBa3qttnSVZ7M3rr8VN7hlHI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=pXwfhbFVkhnFFjeSsvSp+8Ly/6HfhRaaeYHh8P1sL6XdNZc/vbV55jMJ/1gQFU6ozx ctnfhYxmNG/kJUBGrvk+TgXQLyqEIe4Oyw0akHJTHIbJ/InhRoKrIYFiLQaO/T8tTkjB LC+0sjd+Q1RFYAK4RZuyX0Wh89HMadb+5MlsA= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.252.9 with SMTP id z9mr7653283anh.34.1243883052295; Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:12 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <4de8c3930906011038w26ecef60hba19650d3e6e8142@mail.gmail.com> References: <4de8c3930906011038w26ecef60hba19650d3e6e8142@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 16:04:12 -0300 Message-ID: <925d17560906011204t16b3e688i575816c47af3bfdb@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: bu denpa From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?= To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-archive-position: 1735 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 2:38 PM, tijlan wrote: > Why "denpa bu" instead of "bu denpa", which to me would make more > sense, to the extent that it would be consistent with "zo denpa"? The "names" of consonants are by, cy, dy,..., zy. The natural names for vowels (.a, .e, .i, .o, .u) were already taken by the time lerfu were defined (Lojban being "the logical language", the logical connectives were more or less the first words to be defined, and the shortest possible words were immediately grabbed.) So, the vowels became .abu, .ebu, .ibu, .obu, .ubu so that they begin with the same letter they name, like the consonants, and then the -bu suffix was generalized to apply to any word. (I don't swear this is exactly how it happened, but it's probably close.) >From the point of view of consistency, it would probably make more sense to reverse "zo denpa" to "denpa zo" rather than reversing "denpa bu", since single-word suffix modifiers are much more numerous than prefix: BU, UI, CAI, NAI, RAhO, SI, and some others follow the word they modify vs. only ZO and BAhE preceding the word. >From the point of view of the syntax however, it would be easier if BU was a prefix. mu'o mi'e xorxes