From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:49:25 2010 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list Date: Wed Apr 02 10:04:02 1997 From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: proposing a lujvo X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 9480 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Apr 02 10:04:02 1997 X-From-Space-Address: - Message-ID: Mark Vines: >What is the process for proposing a lujvo, getting >the proposal accepted or modified or rejected, & >communicating the result to Lojban users? Gnerally you propose a lujvo by using it. YOu may, if you choose, provide a definition in some manner such as you did, but this is not vital (merely useful). There is no official "process" for approval. As others have noted, if you are understood, trhe lujvo has been at least tentatively accepted. If it is malformed, then of course any official compilation would correct the malformation, which I guess would be a "modification". If someone else uses/proposes a different word for the concept, then both proposals are in effect "part of the language" and actual usage will decide between them and/or choose still another alternative. Most likely, for many concepts, there could exist several plausible words and they might have a variety of place structures according to the lujvo making chapter of the refgrammar (or anyt other means ofdetermining said place structures). There is most definitely no procedure for "rejecting" a lujvo unless it is malformed. The worst that can happen is that your proposal gets ignored either because no one needs a word for the concept (unlikely in the case of your proposal) or because they adopt a different word. But adopting a different word does not mean that your word is not also a part of the language. Steven Belknap replied: >Here is the procedure: Make your lujvo. Use it in a lojban utterance to >someone who is fluent in lojban. If he/she understands, you're done. That >is all that is required. Correct. Mark continued asking: >Really? We don't have to reach an explicit >agreement on the place structure of the lujvo? Do you have to agree to the definition of a word in the English language before using it? If you coin a word, you just start using it, and let the definers figure it out afterwards. In essence we are saying that you are allowed to do the same thing in Lojban. Of course in English you have a solid sense as to the conventions of the language so that a new word has some degree of understandability. Similarly, familiarity with the conventions described in the refgrammar will make your words more acceptable and understandable to other Lojbanists without having to explicitly define them, and this is the desirable state of things in a living language. >Consider: > >.i zo solsentrvi'u cu sinxa lenuzo'e vimcu le >barsenta le solri malformed because you must use "y" and not "r" as the hyphen. I would also say that the word symbolizes the concept "le si'o" and not the event "le nu". Of coursethe word "lujvo" itself would be more precise than "sinxa" in any event, and probably would better convey the relationship of word to meaning. >Would a sentence like that suffice to establish >the meaning of {solsentrvi'u}? Yes and no. I am not sure I know what you mean by it - removing a layer of a star not being something that occurs in everyday life. There is key context information missing like who/what is doing the removal, and what is left after this removal, that would likely be implicit in a proper definition of solsentyvi'u. It is not clear what you mean by "layer" either. No doubt if this word came up in the course of a scientific discussion of astronomy or even in a science fictional context, much of this imnformation would be clear, in which case THEN the word is more or less adquately defined. Without that added context, others could not easily use the word and know they were talking about the same thing that you are referring to. So >I< would want to present more context or a more complete definition if I wanted the word to be added to a dictionary. >What if some >people prefer a more detailed lujvo such as >{solbarborsentrvi'u}? Then they would use it, and there are now two words for the concept, perhaps with somewhat different place structures. > Or what if some people >prefer a different hyphen, yielding {solsentyvi'u}? That one isn't optional. However other forms of the same word would have identical meaning. These would include the completely expanded form: solrysentyvimcu, which to a Lojban is PRECISELY THE SAME WORD AS solsentyvi'u. >Fact is, I have trouble remembering the rules for >hyphens. Does {clamauri'a} work as a lujvo for >"lengthen"? Or must I insert an /n/, yielding >{clamaunri'a}? Hyphens are never optional. If the word form demands a hyphen, you MUST use it. If it does not require a hyphen, you CANNOT use it. "r" is used only after initial CVV in a lujvo not of the form CVVCCV (which MUST NOT) have the "r", and you use "n" instead of "r" if the letter following the hyphen is an "r". "y" is used to break up impermissible consonant clusters, to replace the final vowel in a CCVC- or CVCC- long-form rafsi, and most rarely, when required by the "tosmabru" test to prevent the word from braeaking up. It CANNOT be used otherwise. But I would not worry too much about this in writing Lojban. If you make a mistake, someone will eventually correct it. You can rest assured that all words that go into the dictionary will be validated for proper morphology, and repaired if need be. Note that clamauri'a refers to a physical transitive cause of lengthening. clamaubi'o is also a kind of lengthening, as is clamaugau/clamauzu'e for an agentive lengthening as opposed to a causal form. Again, context is needed to know what you really need here. All of the words I gave could be and indeed ARE valid words for one sort of lengthening or another. But which is needed for YOUR usage, is unclear without the actual usage. Clearly going around coining Lojban words for a list of English words/concepts is not aparticularly definitive approach to adding new vocabulary. Most English words will have several Lojban equivalents. Maybe hundreds or thousands. But then Athelstan once estimated that there were 5 billion possible DISTINCT lujvo of 4 terms or less, so mapping the set of English words to that set will yield much redundancy (not to mention billions of Lojban words that have no meaningful English equivalent). >.i zo solsetvi'u cu sinxa lenuzo'e vimcu le >barsenta le solri .i.a'o lenuzo'e solsetvi'u >nu'o clamauri'a le solri selxaktei > >.i xu do jimpe go'i .e go'e Now here you have used the word in an astronomical context and thereby constrained your intended meaning. It is clear that you are referring to a physical process affecting the sun, and not, for example, to an observational prcess for removing coronal interference with an observation of the sun's disk (which could also be represented by solsetvi'u). YOu have used the word for this meaning before someone used it for another meaning, and therefore your usage has some implicit primacy in any informal debate over the meaning of the word. But if it were determined that you have used too general a word (by using too few terms), then the actual meaning of solsetvi'u could turn out to be a generalized form, which does not necessarily render your usage incorrect, but rather vague or perhaps even metaphorical. Steven replied: >My undestanding is that lujvo are metaphors. Correct, though probably not in the way most people would understand this sentence. > As such, there is no explicit >designation as to what they mean. Until the word appears in a dictionary this is correct. But the usage and any explicit definition can serve to informally restrict the definition. BUT, it is VITAL ot note that the word, whatever it means, has a SINGULAR meaning. It might be vague or broad (especially if short), but it still is a singular definition. There is a metaphorical element to that definition, but it is usually a quite "literal" sort of metaphor. >My understanding is that separate lujvo constructs using different rafsi >(combining forms) are semantically equivalent. MOre strongly, they are IDENTICAL and not merely equivalent. The two forms are considered to be THE SAME WORD. Jorge: >>.i.a'o lenuzo'e solsetvi'u >> nu'o clamauri'a le solri selxaktei >> >> .i xu do jimpe go'i .e go'e >i mi jimpe la'e di'u iku'i o'i zo go'i su'ivla nagi'e >selbrivla I won't try to say this in Lojban, but it is unclear just what Jorge is acknowledging understanding. la'edi'u in his sentence could mean that he understood the question about understanding, without saying anything about understanding the sentences involving new lujvo. Especially since Jorge only talks about the errors in the question sentence. .i mi no'e jimpe le cnino lujvo .ije mi na jimpe le jufra poi vasru le cnino lujvo >If you want the lujvo to appear in the soon-to-be- >-published dictionary with your proposed place structure, >you have to reach an explicit agreement with Lojbab. :) >Other than that, the theory is that usage will determine >place structures. Correct. >{solbarborsentyvi'u}. One doesn't exclude the other. >If the concept is needed frequently enough, one form >will eventually become more popular, I suppose, but >nothing will prevent anyone from useing the other. Agreed. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/"