From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed May 5 15:09:30 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 5 May 1993 09:45:47 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2815; Wed, 05 May 93 09:45:17 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 2555; Wed, 05 May 93 09:46:12 EST Date: Wed, 5 May 1993 14:09:30 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: TECH: experimental cmavo "xo'e" X-Cc: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU To: Erik Rauch Message-ID: <19GLaVZ3NlG.A.V-H.V00kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Thus Bob Chassell: As for the experimental cmavo "xo'e" that started this discussion. What power! To eradicate a place means to change a meaning accepted by a community. Often, new ideas come from thinking something differently. Use of "xo'e" will, I expect, be shocking to listeners. Its use is a declaration by the speaker that the community's normal understanding is wrong, if not in general, then in the context in which the speaker uses "xo'e". .ienai No more so than forming lujvo or, as I think somebody has already suggested, adding a place with BAI. Even forming tanru has this sort of creation. To create a new word, by whatever grammatical means, is neither shocking nor a declaration of anything except the belief that the existing resources do not meet the requirement. My objection to xo'e is that people will treat it as a purely grammatical manipulation (like SE conversion) rather than as a significant semantic modification (like BAI or tanru), and thus use it as a way of avoiding thinking about what they mean. Thus zbasu fixo'e means x1 is made/built/assembled of/from x2, but I am denying the existence, or at least the relevance, of any maker. I am not entirely sure what this means. I am certain that it does NOT mean the same as te marji though it may mean se pagbu or se selci I relish the capacity of Lojban for giving us forms which we can more or less understand, but find very hard to translate into English, or to distinguish from each other in English, and I see the 'zbasu fixo'e' may be one of these. But I am still nervous of its propensity to encourage malglico ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Going though the fear is strong, | Colin Fine Going with your knees a-quake, | Dept of Computing Maybe something you've been wanting | University of Bradford for so long, | Bradford, W. Yorks, England And never dared take. | BD7 1DP You don't have to get yourself ready,|Tel: 0274 733680 (h), 383915 (w) or conquer your fear,| But just welcome the moment, | do se cinri pei? lo rutni bangu And say Yes to the moment, | ('Are you interested in and the Moment is here! | artificial languages?' in Lojban) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^