Message-Id: <199601220543.HAA28528@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Wed, 17 Jan 1996 10:38:49 -0500
Reply-To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Subject:      Re: TECH QUERY: variant fu'ivla
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  <199601171115.GAA27789@locke.ccil.org> from "Ivan A Derzhanski"
              at Jan 17, 96 11:31:20 am
Content-Length: 1344
Lines: 28

la .iVAN. cusku di'e

> 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.)

Linnaean borrowings follow a different rule (this was laid down in JCB's
time):  c > k before back vowels, but is unchanged before front vowels.
It is the Linnaean name >Acer< that controls here, not the homographic
Latin word.

> 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?

Those two examples work because they end in -VVCV and -VCCV;
those endings and -CVCV make for safe fu'ivla.  But the trick won't work
in general:  "cpi'alaudai" fails the slinku'i test:  "pa cpi'alaudai" =
'pac-pi'a-lau-dai'.

--
John Cowan                                      cowan@ccil.org
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.