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Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 18:17:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jon MacLeod <eye_onus@yahoo.com>
Subject: [lojban] Re: Some ideas/questions (long)
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 I never had any intention of creating a new language, nor do I have any
intention of creating a 'monosyllabic' Lojban. Nor do I think it is anyone
elses in the community.

> If we applied this kind of method to the entire language, until every 
> word follows the system, we could potentially eliminate a lot of
> words and thus have enough three-letter combinations for every word.

 I take the above to mean that he wants to fix those exceptions in the language
that occur to 1) minimize the amount of needed gismu by turning unnecessary
gismu into lujvo (such as the the gismu for 'mother' being replaced by the
lujvo for 'woman type-of parent') 2) Making the place structures of similar
words match (for instance the words for 'angry' and 'sad') and 3) enable all
gismu to have easily discerned rafsi.

 As far as the rafsi is concerned, I would think it would make sense to give
all gismu two rafsi, one of type CCV or CVV, and the other of type CVC, in
order to make it possible to combine any rafsi in any order (those gismu with
--C only rafsi cannot be at the end of a gismu, for instance) Also, it would
good to have a standard to make these two rafsi:

CVCCV:

CvCcV + CVCcv | CVcCv

CCVCV:

CcVcV + cCVCv | CcVCv

So, gismu's two rafsi would be:

gsu + gis | gim (probably 'gis')

cmene's would be:

cee + men | cen (probably 'cen')

 This would, I think, be able to determine distinguishable rafsi for every
gismu, especially once the work of eliminating gismu that could easily be
lujvo.

 That is what I offering to help write a proposal on, and I think that if the
work was done on it, that it at least have a chance in commitee, though i am
not confident of it being accepted, merely because of the stubbornness of those
who've ben in the Lojban community a long time. ('It's always been like this,
and it works, why change it?' (The answer is 'Because this works better.' Of
course that's debatable, but we won't know unless the work on the proposal is
done.))

-Jon

=====
"I have a brain, I've just lost my mind." -Ian McLeod

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