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Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 16:05:38 -0400
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Subject: Re: [lojban] {ciftoldi}. caterpillar is not a cifnu
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On 5/29/2015 2:15 PM, Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
> okay, but {lo cifnu} doesn't mean "baby". It denotes a "helpless" baby.

No.  It means baby.  The "helpless" was my biologically-naive perception 
that the semantic difference between a "baby" and a "child" is relative 
helplessness.  I can't tell you at what age/stage a "baby" ceases to be 
a baby and becomes a "child" other than that helplessness of having to 
have someone change their diapers.  (And I wouldn't be surprised if 
different languages divide up human development differently than English 
does)

That other animals don't wear diapers makes the analogy imperfect for 
non-humans.  But Lojban words aren't really intended to solve the human 
tendency to metaphorize concepts that don't strictly fit.  And tanru are 
most definitely include metaphors (as do gismu in some cases).

Biological reality isn't especially relevant, unless Lojban is to be 
limited only to those who know biology in sufficient depth.  And by the 
time we have some non-human species speaking Lojban, no doubt the 
extraterrestrial biology will overturn most of our biological concepts, 
so claiming that Lojban is malremna doesn't convince me.

le jbocifnu pe la camgusmis almost certainly wouldn't understand the 
biological distinctions being argued. I thus agree with Michael.  If the 
word "helpless" isn't optimal, find some other wording.  The gismu 
places structures were limited by character count, so I often used a 
single word that wasn't necessarily a precise definition.

lojbab

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