From cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin Tue Jul 9 17:48:40 1991 Return-Path: Resent-From: cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin Resent-Message-Id: <9107092123.AA20861@relay1.UU.NET> To: lojban-list Subject: gismu list baseline changes Date: 7 Jul 90 00:29:16 EDT (Sat) From: cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab Message-Id: <9007070029.AA05390@snark.thyrsus.com> Resent-Date: Tue, 9 Jul 91 16:24:29 EDT Resent-To: John Cowan Status: RO The following are the changes to the gismu baseline that were approved at and after LogFest. New words have yet to be made; we'll announce them when we get to it (but it'll be a few months). Decisions on gismu Proposals The following proposals were approved with little controversy: 1. Change "ckamu" to "mleca" for rafsi considerations 2. Add "daytime", change keyword for "day" (full day?, 24hr day?) 3. Add "virtue", as distinct from "good", to parallel with "evil" 4. Add "citrus" 5. Add "cabbage", to include broccoli, cauliflower, and perhaps lettuce 6. Add "hemp", to include natural rope, burlap, marijuana, and hashish 7. Add "protein" 8. Add "buckwheat" 9. Add "cassava", to include taro and yam, and other starchy roots (not tubers) 10. Add "sorghum" 11. Add "magenta" and "cyan" as the missing two subtractive primary colors 12. Change the keyword of "gismu" from "primitive" to "root word" 13. Add "North America", the continent, as distinct from "merko", referring to the U.S. 14. Add "South America", the continent, as distinct from "xispo", referring to Latin America 15. Add "Antarctica" The following proposals were added with considerable debate and discussion: 1. Add "glimmering" to cover the concepts of morning and evening twilight, as well as the phenomenon of astronomical terminator; the poetic usefulness and the extension of the concept astronomically led to passage a. "Dawn"/"morning twilight" and "evening twilight" were voted down 2. Define "morning" and "evening" symmetrically a. The specific symmetry required much debate; consensus was finally built around a culture-dependent definition, wherein morning is the time between sleep and work, and evening is the time between work and sleep, according to the cultural norm. In a tanru this could be modified to a personal norm. 3. In a discussion of "decrease" as an opposite of "increase", initial sentiment was only weakly for adding it a. It was noticed that the existing place structure of increase was transitive; it was proposed that by changing the place structure to the intransitive "x1 is increased in property x2 by amount x3", an opposite gismu for "decrease" would be better justified. Without the change, the semantic difference from "adjust" and "add" was felt to be too small. b. The vote to add "decrease" in parallel to the new meaning of "increase" was then successful The following changes were voted down: 1. Add "text" 2. Add "tears" 3. Add "ugly", the opposite of "beautiful" 4. Add "diffuse", the opposite of "concentrated" 5. Add "deficient", (after discussion, it was decided that "deficient" is the opposite of "excess" with "sufficient" as middle ground. The opposite of "sufficient" then, encompasses both excess or deficient. 6. Add "alfalfa" 7. Add a common term for the Western Hemisphere continents The following are still open issues: 1. The definition of "arm" was not discussed; we forgot. 2. It was decided to change the keywords for "tanru" and "lujvo". Unfortunately, there has been no consensus on what to change them to. The clear sense is to avoid linguistic jargon and words that have multiple meanings in English such as "compound". There is some sentiment for keywords that show a parallelism in definitions of the two concepts, though alternatively the parallelism could be made clear in the extended definition. The keyword should be 15 characters or less to keep it simple for LogFlash users (and avoid an unnecessary program modification). The proposed choices, in roughly chronological order are: a. open compound closed compound b. relation phrase affix compound c. relation phrase relation compound d. word cluster cluster word e. word cluster affix cluster f. word grouping affix grouping g. grouped words affix word(s) h. modified phrase modified word i. phrase relation affix relation 3. The familial relationships never quite seem to satisfy. It was agreed to add "sire" and "dam" to the definitions of "patfu" and "mamta" (no vote necessary since place structure change). Later it was suggested that we retain some unsatisfactory holes and combinations, which are of uncertain importance. The fact that American culture is shifting away from traditional family structures makes it unlikely that we (who are all Americans) can decide on a culturally neutral solution. The choices are then to be maximally inclusive of the possible relationships, or to pare the list in ways that ignore American sensibilities. The general preference seems to be for the former. Thus, we can make the following matrix: Gender-neutral Male Female Gender-neutral but but genetic not-necessarily-genetic 1. panzi bersa tixnu se rirni 1a. verba 1b. cifnu 2. bruna mensi lunba 3. se panzi patfu mamta rirni ("rearer") 3a. se jbena "mother/father" But note that as currently defined, "patfu" and "mamta" are defined biologically, whereas their counterparts (except "se jbena") need not be. The obvious suggestion is to make them non-biological. However, it can reasonably be argued that with animal breeding and genetics, and in some less transitional cultures, the biological parents have a uniquely important role enough to be considered 'primitive'. If so, the tanru "mamta se panzi" and "patfu se panzi" may be too long to be satisfactory. They could be shortened by any of the options: a. Change "panzi" to be its inverse, making "se panzi" into offspring; b. Add a different gismu to be the inverse of "panzi"; c. Add two gismu to specifically represent the genetic relationships "sire" and "dam"; Other options are possible. Note also that "rirni" is not quite the same as "mother/father", so we may need another genderless general term here. There is also the question of the extended family, which we have long ignored. We can be very specific about "mother-mother", "father- sister", and other extended family relationships, but we cannot be general. This is a weakness in that most cultures use general terms, and in American culture, the extended family relationships are getting so complex that specific terms will not suffice. For discussion purposes then, let us consider: a. "elder/ancestor" for family members of generations preceding the parents (including non-direct line, the relationship is more social/ethnic than biological). Gender would be added via tanru, as would explicit biological lineage (or a place could be used for specifying lineage, with specific names used in alternation with properties of the lineage of relation). The conversion would give "descendant" as well as "grandkids" in the broadest sense. b. "aunt/uncle/godparent" for non-lineal (socio-ethnic) family members of the parental generation. The conversion would give "niece/nephew". c. "cousin" for non-immediate (socio-ethnic) family members of the same generation. The generalized family relationship is still expressed by "lanzu", which can be modified via tanru. Other: Days of the week were discussed prior to the gismu baseline discussion, and it was decided to add color and continent based names as alternatives to the number based names that have been standard. In addi- tion, the number based names will be set to run from 0 to 7, with Sunday serving as both 0 and 7, depending on speaker preference/orientation. John Cowan expressed great skepticism that any alternate system would catch on. They seem too much like crackpot 'calendar reform' efforts, and isn't well supported in numerical date representations. He also noted that not all cultures have a 7-day week (which had been previously noted). The generic concept of a week is the time between successive market days, which ranges from 4 to 9 days in agrarian non- Western cultures. He thus suggested that "jeftu" add a place to indicate the culture. This requires no vote, since it is a place struture change. If you have comments on any of the open issues, either put them on the lojban-list, or send them to me. --lojbab