Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110212140.AA10382@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Tue Oct 22 02:57:38 1991 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Subject: Re: aphorisms & cultural gismu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 21 Oct 91 15:13:21 EDT.) <14276.9110212114@ucl.ac.uk> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Oct 22 02:57:38 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN > One major point that needs to be made, though: And asks why "Canadian" is > "kadno" and not "kando". As you pointed out, there is "kandi"=="dim". > Note that no two gismu may differ only in their final vowel, as that would > give them identical 4-letter rafsi (kand-). I forgot about that. Seeing as the final vowel of a gismu is arbitrary & noncontrastive, why did Lojban not: (a) make gismu easier to learn by always using the same final vowel, or requiring the final vowel to be the same as the medial one (i.e. complete vowel harmony); or (b) put the final vowel to some syntactic use, such as indicating the number & types of argument the gismu has? > Moreoever, it is against the > driving principle of lojban to say "nobody would ever think 'you're looking > pale today' meant 'you're looking Canadian today'". We're trying to cook > up an *unambiguous* language, rememner? Yes but I was suggesting what I thought was a nonhomonymous word. ------ And