Message-Id: <199411300301.AA09259@nfs1.digex.net>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>
Date: Tue Nov 29 22:01:57 1994
Subject:      Re: Some thoughts on Lojban gadri
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Tue, 29 Nov 94 12:52:30 EST.)
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 29 22:01:57 1994
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu

John:
> >    The dodo is extinct, The dodo survived for millions of years.
> >    The dodo ate figs, The dodo had a lifespan of ten years.
>
> The last two statements are about "lo'e cipnrdodo", but the first two
> aren't: they are about "le jutsi po'u la'o ly. Raphus cucullatus ly.".
> or, less precise but perhaps clearer, "le cipnrdodo jutsi".
>
> A biological species isn't really a category of individuals; it is itself an
> individual, a line of descent from a common ancestor.  Thus, statements about
> species don't require class generics.

This is only one way of viewing species. Another is to see a species just
as a category, reflecting a clustering of similar genetic properties.

But anyway, I could offer other class generics:

   The mediaeval tourney survived for two hundred years but was obsolete
   by C16.
   Penis envy was invented by Freud.

We just need a way of saying "the category of". We probably have it
in "klesi" - "lo klesi be ro lo penis envy/mediaeval tourney", or
something like that. Maybe "lohe" would be better than "ro lo".

> > > And who would weep at the loss of a few cmavo? There's less to learn,
> > > which is a boon, given that they're all so similar in form.
> >
> > There is a tendency, which should have a name, but doesn't (the
> > Innominate Law?) for all versions of Loglan to fill up cmavo space.  The
> > problem is then "solved" by extending cmavo space (the most recent stunts
> > being the separation of "vv" and "v'v" and the letteral-words ending in
> > "y"), only to have it fill up again.

This is The And's Desk Law. However much space there is, it always gets
covered; strata accumulate until an avalanche is precipitated.

A cmavo-space expanding wheeze that occurred to me is to have a handful
of cmavo specifically defined for the purpose, kind of like a marker
of switched code. All cmavo would mean one thing by default and something
else when preceded by xu'i, and something else when preceded by xu'a,
and so on.

----
And