Return-Path: Message-Id: <9205051911.AA28749@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Tue May 5 15:50:15 1992 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Possible orthography convention - would this help anyone? X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Tue May 5 15:50:15 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN I have been studying Russian, and have learned about an orthography convention that may be helpful if adopted for Lojban. Like the use of << and >> for quotations, periods for mandatory pauses even when obvious by the word formation rules and ( and ) parentheses for the various forms of Lojban parentheses, this convention would be totally optional: the orthography would not substitute for any Lojban words, and would not have any special requirement in speaking, although people might tend to insert phrasing pauses in accordance with the convention as an aid to listener understanding. Specifically, Russian, like Lojban, does not use a verb "to be" = "du" in most of its sentences. In equational sentences, it uses a dash (which I'll represent as --) where the "to be" would normally go. The convention is not used after a pronoun, or in other simple cases - it appears from my limited observations that it merely helps break up a long sentence by dividing it at a structurally mportant place - one that often serves as a phrase break within the sentence. (Ivan will please correct me on any applicable information on this convention.) The appropriate equivalent Lojban convention would be to allow a dash before a "cu" marking the main selbri of a bridi. The dash would, like Russian, not be used after a pronoun and probably not after a single name, as the only sumti before the selbri. It would be used, however, after a lenu clause, or after multiple sumti or other phrases appearing before the main selbrixD. In Russian, the dash is apprantly not used before most negations. However for Lojban, I would suggest that it would be most useful when the text uses a tense or negation on the selbri, and hence probably does not need a "cu". We don;t yet have a lot of usage of such complex sentences, except perhaps by Nick, and especially not in tensed and negated{ sentences. Examples: lenu mi klama le zarci -- cu pluka mi leni mi djuno fi la rusyban. -- ca na zmadu leni la .iVAN. djuno fi la gliban. This is very much ONLY a proposal, not a policy. But people have wanted some such conventions, and tehy were discussed at length a few issues ago (JL12 or Jl13, I think), so I figured I'd toss this out on the table for discussion. Opinions? lojbab