From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Apr 1 14:32:38 1992 Return-Path: Date: Wed Apr 1 14:32:38 1992 Message-Id: <9204011455.AA02759@relay2.UU.NET> Reply-To: CJ FINE Sender: Lojban list From: CJ FINE Subject: Confusible words (was: Re: Quine Text) X-To: Dave@PRC.unisys.com X-Cc: Lojban list To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: ; from "Mark E. Shoulson" at Mar 31, 92 1:59 pm Status: RO I'll try to answer Dave's question. Probably somebody at the lojbangirz can give a more authoritatvie answer. > > It's good that Lojban makes a distinction between "mass" and > "collective" (though these don't seem like great terms to use). This > is a useful distinction to make if one is trying to be clear. > > However, problems arise when similar words can be used in the same > context with different meanings. In spoken English I find "can" and > "can't" to be the worst offenders [as in "I cang go with you"]. In > written English "now" and "not" are problematical ["We are now/not > ready."] because, though apparently clear and unambiguous, each word > is easy to mistype as the other. > > My Lojban is still very very weak, but it sounds from what mark says > as though {loi}, {lo'i}, and {lo'e} can all be used in identical > contexts, with different meanings. These sound very much alike, > particularly the first two. I should think that someone who has > learned to type these words would also tend to type one for another. > > If these similar-sounding words can be used in the same context, this > would be a Bad Thing. It's OK for completely different words to sound > alike (such as "hungry" and "Hungary"), because they don't occur in > similar contexts; it's not OK for words that are used in identical > contexts to sound alike. > I think the critical thing is not whether there are words that can be mistaken for each other (inevitable) nor even words that can occur in the same context that are mistakable (probably inevitable), but how much the sense is changed by the mistake. As you say, "can" and "can't" are sometimes difficult to distinguish; similarly the negative particle "ne" in French often vanishes (which is why "pas" and "personne" became standard - they originally had no special negative meaning). In Institute Loglan, the digits were in pairs sharing an initial consonant, eg "fo" = 4, "fe" = 5, and the designers of Lojban deliberately took a different tack - if you're talking numbers at all, it is inclined to be important which number (as the Scots soldiers discovered in France during the war, when they kept asking for two things (Scots "twa") and getting three (French "trois"). However, what is significant here is that the difference between the words is quite subtle. Granted that each of the words la/lai/la'i/le/lei/le'e/le'i/lo/loi/lo'e/lo'i certainly has a different meaning, or they wouldn't be defined as different, nonetheless they all perform the function of designating something(s) expressed either as a selbri or a cmene. Agreed you can probably come up with examples where the difference is important, nay vital, I doubt that it is very often going to be the case that getting the wrong one makes that much difference. Which is not to say that Lojban is free of more serious possibilities for confusion. I am waiting for somebody to confuse "-moi" after cmavo, with "-moi" after rafsi. For example "romoi" = "last", "rolmoi" = "all dead"! kolin