From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Feb 12 19:28:11 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 12 Feb 92 19:27 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA22713; Wed, 12 Feb 92 19:24:41 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA13600; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:22:43 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA03575; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:20:10 EST Message-Id: <9202122220.AA03575@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 5384; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:18:02 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 7171; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:14:53 EST Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1992 16:39:59 EST Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: How Many Syllables, part II X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO (This will not make sense unless you have read my previous "How Many Syllables") Of course, there are lots more syllable types that appear only in le'avla and cmene. lojbab and I thought of "VCC", "CVCC", "CCVCC", "VVCC", "CVVCC", "CCVCC", "CCR", "IVC", "CIVC", "CCIVC", "IVCC", "CIVCC", "CCIVCC", "CCCV", "CCCVC", "CCCVV", "CCCVVC", and there undoubtedly are others. ("I" represents "i" or "u" as glides. In general, the whole phonotactics of names and borrowings is undefined. Are final clusters allowed in names? Clearly: ".and." is a good example. But >which< final clusters? Nobody knows. Furthermore, there is the "close-comma", notated ",", which specifies an undefined glide between vowels, and which can lead to real problems: how can you tell the differences between "ai,ia", "a,ia", and "ai,a"? Still, the list of syllables for cmavo, gismu, and lujvo is probably complete, and it's useful to see that the core of the language, excluding stuff grabbed from other languages, is essentially very small in syllabic terms (for comparison, English has tens of thousands of syllables). -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban