From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Nov 21 09:52:38 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:52:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GmZn9-0002OS-CO for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:52:19 -0800 Received: from web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.199.118]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GmZn0-0002OG-G2 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:52:17 -0800 Received: (qmail 24660 invoked by uid 60001); 21 Nov 2006 17:52:07 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=0VdhXacyCxrZO97PLSruhTpQSmn8v9+3LrmI7G+42yT7JwoNnrbvpSB+uCHUkrsCmFBOtGYKaAoPjhcmapn6z0A/jFeSSqbEDJ+GE30Q0ZRy/meAtPW7ps5HvgERjRwsSneLNZgzC6shJ5RNeGx/4wQCxKYJwur4tLjzRwylLQk= ; Message-ID: <20061121175207.24658.qmail@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Received: from [70.237.213.146] by web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:52:07 PST Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:52:07 -0800 (PST) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: ki'a To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: <45622725.7010705@lojban.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -1.6 (-) X-archive-position: 13240 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- Bob LeChevalier wrote: > Yanis Batura wrote: > > On 20.11.2006, 6:48, Bob LeChevalier wrote: > >>Yanis Batura wrote: > >> > >>>{pinpedi} is a stage 4 fu'ivla, like {djirafa}, {alga}, {caxmati} etc. > > > > > >>And is an example of why I am opposed to inventing stage 4 fu'ivla at > >>this point in the language evolution - as we can see, no one has any > >>idea what it means. A fu'ivla should remain a Type III - marked by a > >>semantic-hint rafsi - until its usage is so common that usage (and/or > >>Zipf's law) indicates a need for a shorter form. I don't think that any > >>fu'ivla has received such usage. > > > > > > There are only 1342 semantic hint classes. > > Most natural languages using a semantic classifier system have a couple > orders of magnitude fewer classes (they are commonly called "genders", > Swahili has 14, and Russian has only 3), and they work anyway. > A more nearly parallel case are the radicals in chinese orthography. there are a couple hundred of these, probably not actually enough to disambiguate pinyin, but enough for the present purpose, one hopes. 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.