Message-Id: <9207101109.AA07822@relay1.UU.NET>
Date:         Fri, 10 Jul 1992 02:04:21 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!lojbab>
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!CUVMB.BITNET!pucc.Princeton.EDU!LOJBAN>
From: Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!lojbab>
Subject:      new lojban gismu list
To: John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Raymond <eric@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Tiedemann <est@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>
Status: RO

As Mark has just posted, the new, long-awaited version of the gismu list is
now available on the PLS, and indeed, it IS in the format that LogFlash uses
(Richard Kennaway please note).

This is  a draft version, although hopefully a nearly final version.  It is
posted for people to use and comment on in as much detail as you care to offer
especially with regard to the definitions and their clarity.  We tried very
hard to balance clarity with keeping the definitions short (which LogFlash
still helps us enforce, since its expanded limit, now 96 characters, is still
too small to allow wordiness).  There are many conventions used to keep the
definitions short, though hopefully many of them will be quite obvious.
References to {event, state, activity, property, quality, amount, abstraction,
and du'u ("the fact that")} mean that the place is generally filled by an
abstracted bridi marked by a LE+NU article (though other constructions can
work if the semantics is right).

Sometimes, addendum information is stuck out to the right beyond the 96
characters if we couldn't fit it into the limit.  At the 96 character limit
are two sets of numbers.  One column with nvalues like '1a' and '3b' are codes
used in the draft textbook lessons that allow you to sort and correlate
these words with the words in the draft lessons for updating and clarifying
those lessons.  The second column of purely numerical values is the gismu
frequency in actual usage, from statistics gathered last week on the entire
corpus of Lojban text, teaching materials, and a sampling of email.  Sorting
in descending order on this value (4 digits) will give you the words in an
order approximating the best order to learn them to understand typical
Lojban discussions.

Also present are the current rafsi assignments, though those assignements
are being revised right now to reflect actual usage in the last few years.
The proposed revisions should be available within a couple of weeks for
comment.

I would like comments on the list in whatever form suits you, either email
or snail post to the .sig address.  Any issues raised will be considered either
at LogFest the weekend of August 15 (everyone invited - let us know if you
want to come - here in the DC area), or if easily resolved, by a smaller group
of people helping me.  This posting for comment is your major chance to
contribute comments prior to our publishing the final list in the first
Lojban dictionary, which I hope will follow shortly this review period.

I'll take comments after the 15th of August, possibly up till around the
beginning of September they may be incorporated into the text, but the window
for revision will shrink rapidly thereafter because I'll be working with
multiple text files by then that will be hard to keep consistent with each
other if I go around making changes, so PLEASE don't wait too long to
look at them.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                      lojbab@grebyn.com
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273

For information about the artificial language Loglan/Lojban, please
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