Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 23:24:52 -0400 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199408010324.AA26967@access1.digex.net> To: ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk Subject: Re: current cmene project Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Sun Jul 31 23:24:58 1994 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab UC> I take the point about "lo", but not about "tcadrlondono": this means UC> whatever the lexicon says it means - it may be defined as meaning UC> 'x such that x is a city called "London"', but equally well it may UC> be defined as 'x such that x is the city of London, England'. Fuhivla, UC> like gismu, and unlike cmene, have fixed definitions. [I may be wrong, UC> of course; since you disagree with me, I probably am.] You are correct but 1) The fixed definition of the name is one agreed upon by consensus in the community (sorry, make that "of the fu'ivla"). I will NOT make the commitment to come up with unique fu'ivla for every possible town name in the world so as to make them all unique referents. Thus, I would be prone to define something like "tcadrlondono" as x1 is a city named "London" or something similar in pronunciation, in location (gugde/jecta) x2. That is as broad as possible (our norm in making new words), and also avoids the question of standards (are you within the city proper or in the metropolitan area, and what definition of being "in" are you using, etc. Actually, I'll amend that - if I want to make it coinsistent with the gismu varieties of "names". It would be x1 pertains to the city called "London" or something similar at location x2 in aspect x3 since the culture words are uniformly "pertains to" rather than "is a". If you want "is a" even for cultural gismu, you tend to make names, albeit names made out of the Lojban rafsi like "lojban" and "gliban" UC> I am not suggesting making fuhivla for names, I am suggesting making UC> fuhivla for referring to things. I am suggesting, for example, that UC> there be a fuhivla to fill the gap in the following pattern: UC> UC> ______ : Londinian :: brito : British UC> Since I don;t want to tie up all fu'ivla space with namess-as-they-are, giving rpeference to thoise the existing skewed set of Lojbanists think are important, this would be unwise as a general policy. Of course, there are multiple referents of "British", and only one of them is assigned to "brito" (an ancient computer game - the "Ultima" series, has a major character named "Lord British"). In addition, it is arguable that the Roman Londinium was a somewhat different thing than the current city of London, botyh in boundaries, and probably in usefulness in talking about things "related to" the city.) In addition, we still haven;t addressed the problem of non-consensus of pronunciation as it affects Lojbanization. The names that will appear in the dictionary will be VERY CLEARLY indicated as examples and proposals. They will have some prescriptive nature merely because they are mentioned in the dictionary, but I have no intention of letting a rather hurried ad hoc effort determine the shape of a large chunk of the language word space forever. lojbab