Message-Id: <199601202030.PAA01936@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Wed, 17 Jan 1996 20:18:22 -0300
Reply-To: Paulo Barreto <pbarreto@UNISYS.COM.BR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Paulo Barreto <pbarreto@UNISYS.COM.BR>
Subject:      Re: TECH QUERY: variant fu'ivla
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: OR
Content-Length: 1664

cu'u la iVAN.

>>A parallel situation exists in type 3 fu'ivla (those made with gismu-based
>>prefixes) [...]: "ricrxacere" and "tricrxacere" are both possibilities for
>>"maple" (genus >Acer<).
>
>Not {-akere}?  There is no {c}-sound in Latin, and we shouldn't make
>too much of the (necessarily arbitrary) choice of Roman letters to
>represent the sounds of Lojban.  (Meaning that I would like to think
>that Lojban would sound the same if it had a wholly different spelling
>or even a different alphabet from the outset.)

There is no {c}-sound in *classical* Latin. In *medieval* Latin the letter
'c' sounded most likely as in modern Italian, i.e. {tc} before 'e' and 'i',
otherwise {k} (though I'm not sure about 'y').

>While we're at the subject of fu'ivla and their shapes, what about
>fu'ivla starting in {CCV'V-}, where {CCV} is a classifying rafsi and
>the original word starts in a vowel (or a vowel preceded by a consonant
>that we choose to ignore), say, {cpi'alauda} for `lark' (Alauda),
>{cpi'irondo} for `swallow' (Hirondo)?  As far as I can see, such
>words don't run the risk of being parsed as something else.  Comments?

Though fu'ivla having the CCV'V form are not allowed for the possibility
of parsing {CV  CCV'V} as {CVC-CV'V}, as in {pa  cpi'a} -> {pacpi'a}, words of
the proposed form cannot be confused because of the anti-tosmabru hyphen:
{pa  cpi'alauda} won't be parsed *{pacpi'alauda}, as the correct form for
this lujvo is {pacypi'alauda}.

By the way, I think the correct Latin name is 'Hirundo'.

co'o mi'e paulos.


Paulo S.L.M. Barreto -- Software Analyst
    *** PGP public key available ***
       e'osai ko sarji la lojban.