From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Dec 17 14:20:57 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:20:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J4OKX-00081g-9M for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:20:57 -0800 Received: from phma.optus.nu ([166.82.175.165] helo=ixazon.dynip.com) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J4OKS-00081Y-Gb for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:20:57 -0800 Received: from chausie (unknown [192.168.7.4]) by ixazon.dynip.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 50420CE859 for ; Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:20:48 -0500 (EST) From: Pierre Abbat To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: nth letter of the alphabet Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:20:43 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 References: <200712171602.42691.phma@phma.optus.nu> <925d17560712171328r181fe4dfg7c4bdfdf97edcc99@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <925d17560712171328r181fe4dfg7c4bdfdf97edcc99@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200712171720.44510.phma@phma.optus.nu> X-Spam-Score: 0.1 X-Spam-Score-Int: 1 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14024 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: phma@phma.optus.nu Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Monday 17 December 2007 16:28, Jorge Llambías wrote: > On Dec 17, 2007 6:02 PM, Pierre Abbat wrote: > > I wrote an article [[i]] on the Lojban Wiktionary in which the first > > definition says that it's a letter of the alphabet. > > But is it? In English, it's correct to define the word "i" as a letter, > because that's one of the menings of that word, for example as used in the > sentence "i before e except after c". But in Lojban "i" does not name a > letter. Or maybe Wiktionary entries are not just for words, but also for > symbols? (If it was "I", > pronounced /ibu/, that would perhaps be better, though it's a cmavo > compound of two words in this case.) "i" is a letter of the Lojban alphabet, but it's under the ==sorbau== header, because it's a letter of the alphabets of many other languages too. I should put an entry for the Turkish alphabet, because the capital form in Turkish is different. The Lojban entry for "i" defines it as the sentence separating cmavo. > I wouldn't count slaka bu as a letter, any more than preti bu for example, > because it corresponds to no phoneme of the language. denpa bu, on the > other hand, does correspond to a phoneme. It only occurs at the beginning > or end of words, but then y'y never occurs at the beginning or end of words > (I like to think of them as complementary allophones). In utterances longer than single words, they are not allophones. {mi citka le stagi na.o le rectu} and {mi citka le stagi na'o le rectu} are both grammatical and parse differently. Pierre 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.