From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Nov 14 20:10:56 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:10:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GkC6d-00019Y-66 for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:10:35 -0800 Received: from pi.meson.org ([66.134.26.207]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GkC6T-00019M-Kp for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:10:34 -0800 Received: (qmail 23264 invoked from network); 15 Nov 2006 04:10:19 -0000 Received: from nagas.meson.org (HELO ?192.168.1.101?) (1000@192.168.1.101) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 15 Nov 2006 04:10:19 -0000 Message-ID: <455A932B.4000800@kli.org> Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:10:19 -0500 From: "Mark E. Shoulson" User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (X11/20061025) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: "la" rule References: <20061114173413.83990.qmail@web81314.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <455A35B4.5020804@lojban.org> In-Reply-To: <455A35B4.5020804@lojban.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 13177 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mark@kli.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Bob LeChevalier wrote: > John E Clifford wrote: > >> It seems to me that no trick so far discussed will work in practice: >> we will not remember to >> exempt certain syllables from names, we will forget pauses (though >> making {la} and the like to be >> learned as {la.} where the period is a genuine glottal stop might >> improve things). > > That is the essence of the problem. > > Without a solution that unquestionably will work and be used in > practice, the justification for changing the baselined status quo > isn't there. Well, that's the question to be asked, isn't it. We have a solution already, which unquestionably does NOT work. Do we jettison it in favor of one that might? We have to pick our catastrophe. > Those who like the pause-all-the-time solution can implement the > practice of pausing all the time to show that in fact people can and > will learn to do so, which could at least partially negate this > argument; that is a legal dialect. I suspect such a dialect would be > aesthetically displeasing, but we'd be able to judge by example. I don't deny the potential aesthetic problems, though aesthetics is in the ear of the beholder. A lot of Lojban's sound-system is already considered "aesthetically displeasing" by many listeners (usually outside of the Lojban camp). But audio-visual isomorphism is a more important consideration for Lojban (to me) than aesthetics. >> Again, using >> something that occurs nowhere else (the glottal stop is a >> difficult-to-use-or-remember-or-hear >> example) seems the safest route (and can be used, as was pointed out >> some time ago, to deal with >> borrowings as well). > > We tried the "something that occurs nowhere else" trick for fu'ivla > compounding, using ",iy," as the hyphen. I think someone eventually > came up with a "somewhere else" and it was aesthetically displeasing > to people as well. Look, we already ARE using something that occurs nowhere else in the word: the pause! Plans to use something even more obtrusive in that role aren't going to help. ~mark To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.