Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:19:45 -0500 (EST) id CAA03505 for cowan@ccil.org; Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:04:12 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 02:04:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199709290604.CAA03505@access1.digex.net> To: cowan@ccil.org Subject: old response on "pregnant" X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 2782 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Sep 29 02:19:55 1997 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab@access.digex.net >From: John Cowan >Subject: Pregnant >To: Logical Language Group > >Several people have objected that "pazvau" ("panzyvasru", "offspring- >container") could equally well refer to a crib. But the place >structure prevents this: > > v1=p2 v2=p1 > x1 is a container/parent for contents/offspring x2 > >which means that a crib can be a "pazvau" only if the "se pazvau" is the >crib's child! Begs the question, since the place structure is devised from the meaning which in turn is the English concept. To have the word mean crib, one would have to have a somewhat different place structure, but that just argues for - having a different place structure. The point made by the critics of pazvau = "pregnant" is that the tanru "panzi vasru" has an obvious and useful broader meaning which seems to be lujvo-able, making thate meaning a better choice than that the restrictive meaning given by Nick's list and enshrined in the drfat dictionary. In short, this is perhaps a lujvo that should be weeded out or recast. Written independetly, and combining two messages in one: The recent discussion of "pregnant" turns out to match closely with what I hear Nora saying regarding her dictionary work. Yes it is true that the dictionary draft has "pazvau = offspring-container" for "pregnant". Presumably someone once used teh word for that concept. But "offspring-container" could also mean "cradle" or "womb". Without the original context, it is hard to know for sure that even the translation "pregnant" is correct for the Lojban. In any event, even if the word is valid, it is Nora's concern that "pregnant" appear in the English side of the dictionary with ONLY that Lojban equivalent, even though there are other at-least-as-good words for the concept that will be less questionable and which might have different/better place structures. She fears more-or-less that words appearing on the English side of the dictionary with only one equivalent are going to become encoded-English based on the implied strict 1-1 correspondence. Sje is especially fearful if the word chosen is intentionally poetic/metaphorical (e.g. Karen Stein's snowflake done as "snow-flower" or something like that). No idea how to solve this. We can have all the disclaimers we want, but some people will use a dictionary thoughtlessly. My real feeling is that with suitable disclaimer, and our likely intention to revise the dictionary often in terms of ADDING words (not changing them, which would violate the baseline) would suffice. (but this does not invalidate the problem caused by constraining the lujvo based on the restrictive place structure analysis that you referred to in the message quoted above. Opinions? lojbab