On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 1:31 AM, Gleki Ar= xokuna <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com> wrote:

Two ideas.

1. Why not change tone notation to pinyin style w= ith numbers? (May be it'll be easier for future Chinese gua\spi users?)=

Pinyin uses accent marks far more of= ten than numerals. (Wade-Giles uses numerals.) And Chinese almost never use= pinyin, except on road signs, and then without tone marks.=A0

stevo

=A0

2. If not much difference between Lojban and gua\spi may be create a = two-way converter Lojban <=3D> gua\spi? If such converter exists gua\= spi can =A0quickly accumulate the same corpus as Lojban.

On Thursday, August 9, 2012 3:39:02 A= M UTC+4, selpa'i wrote:
Am 08.08= .2012 19:56, schrieb Jim Carter:
> On Sun, 5 Aug 2012, selpa'i wrote:
>
>> How complete is gua\spi? If it's as usable as Lojban curre= ntly is,=20
>> I'd say it's very close to complete.
>
> I can see this discussion flying off on multiple tangents: what do= es=20
> it mean for a language to be complete? =A0I'd say that there i= s an=20
> equivalence class of languages that can express predicate logic,= =20
> including the natural languages I know, Lojban/Loglan, and gua\spi= . =A0
> Gua\spi's vocabulary is a slight superset of Lojban (I may hav= e thrown=20
> out one or two words, and I did add maybe 5% more words), so in th= at=20
> sense gua\spi covers just about the same semantic space that Lojba= n does.

I realized this reading through the reference grammar again. It seems= =20
like it can do everything (not an educated opinion, I'm still a=20
beginner) that Lojban can do, and I consider Lojban complete enough to= =20
be used in daily life and in literature.

> "Usable" refers to how easily and accurately the speaker= s can express=20
> what they want (versus whether it can be done even if kludges are= =20
> needed). =A0The vendor hypes the product as being usable.

True, but I didn't get the impression you were hyping the product m= ore=20
than anybody else would hype their personal conlang.

>
>> So if you have some other texts about the language, more gramm= ar=20
>> explanations etc, it would be great to be able to read them.
>
> Unfortunately, the material you've already seen in=20
> http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/guaspi/index.html
> is all that I've done. =A0Sorry.

No problem. I'm still thankful for the documents on that page. I ju= st=20
wish that they went at a slower pace.

>
>> Also, you mention that you translated quite a bit of text into= =20
>> gua\spi. Could you upload that text somewhere? I would like to= see=20
>> some actual usage of the language.
>
> Actually I said that I'd translated about 20,000 words into Ol= d Loglan.
> Sorry again.

Ah, no problem again. Then I guess I'll have to write my own texts= =20
instead. :)

>
>> So bottom line, how realistic would you consider it to be that= people=20
>> could start learning gua\spi? Would you be able to support the= =20
>> learners if some bigger problems arose? Once more than one per= son=20
>> (you) is at a good level in the language, the burden gets dist= ributed=20
>> and eventually, the language will get a life of its own.
>
> I'm ambivalent here -- I would be happy to support someone (yo= u)=20
> working on gua\spi, but I need to warn up front that it could not = be=20
> high-bandwidth support, e.g. like what Robin Powell does for Lojba= n. =A0
> May I squeeze in a support tidbit (which could be of interest in= =20
> Lojban also)?=20

Any help is appreciated. I'm currently wrestling with subordinate= =20
clauses in gua\spi, and if I can't figure them out by myself, I wil= l=20
have to ask you for clarification. I expect that after subordinate=20
clauses, the rest is straightforward as it's very similar to Lojban= =20
(numbers, articles, pronouns etc), so I hope to achieve some level of= =20
independence after this stumbling block. (I'm also still struggling= with=20
the 5th tone, the others I can easily produce, but I'm making progr= ess).

> From the reference manual, vocabulary chapter intro: "Frequen= tly I=20
> have thought that some form or meaning required a new primitive wo= rd,=20
> or even a change in the grammar, but it has turned out that existi= ng=20
> words were more than adequate if creatively used."

I believe that 100%. I won't be trying to invent anything new until= I'm=20
fluent *fingers crossed*.

>
> Occasionally someone stumbles across gua\spi and sends me mail abo= ut=20
> it, but I think you (selpa'i) are the first one to dig into it= deeply.

Good to know. It motivates me to be the first one to try this.

>
> I think the major value of gua\spi for the Lojban community is in= =20
> seeing how a similar language does things differently, particularl= y in=20
> the areas of compound words and in MEX.

Yes, I'm currently discovering all the differences and similarities= , and=20
it's really interesting. I'm not sure how much of it can be use= d in=20
Lojban, but I'm just doing this for its own sake, because I am=20
interested in gua\spi itself.

> In about an hour I'm going to be on an airplane to Prague, so = I may=20
> have a little trouble holding up my end of this thread, but I'= ll try.

Okay. This thread doesn't seem to be going at a fast pace, anyway. = If I=20
can't figure out the subordinates, I'll turn to you, if that= 9;s okay.=20
Though, now that I think about it, I'm not sure I can figure it out= =20
alone. I've tried for two days and it's still confusing.
For example, in, say:

^:i \ji /crw \kseo ^ve tum \qnou [\ji]
"I eat the cheese with [my] hands."

I can't tell whether the ve-clause is really a clause or if it'= s just a=20
sort of ad-hoc case link which gets filled by "qnou". I was r= elatively=20
sure it's the former. The third case of "tum" gets moved = to the first=20
position automatically, making "qnou" go into the second case= .
But ^ve tum \qnou =3D=3D \vo X1 \zu tum \qnou, so now I think it's = the=20
latter. But this would mean that everything gets reduced to an infiniti= ve...

But I'm afraid that if I start asking questions now, I will remembe= r=20
more and more things I would like to have clarified, so maybe we should= =20
do this off-list.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

--=20
pilno zo le xu .i lo dei bangu cu se cmene zo lojbo .e nai zo lejbo

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