From robin@bilkent.edu.tr Tue May 27 12:56:45 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 27 May 2003 12:56:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.12) id 19KkYo-0004oe-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 27 May 2003 12:56:38 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C81731FB1 for ; Tue, 27 May 2003 22:56:04 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (ppp103.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.111.103]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 36F7B31F05 for ; Tue, 27 May 2003 22:56:02 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3ED3E03F.6050704@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 23:01:35 +0100 From: Robin Turner User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030313 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Beginner's take on the open/closed gismu debate (was: Re: emotions) References: <20030527044429.GA1170@panda.localdomain> <20030527091203.P27366-100000@granite.thestonecutters.net> <20030527135338.GB21194@localhost.nv.cox.net> <20030527141108.GA23729@allusion.net> In-Reply-To: <20030527141108.GA23729@allusion.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020531 X-archive-position: 5464 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Jordan DeLong wrote: > On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 09:53:38AM -0400, tbovee@daypoems.net wrote: > >>Speaking as an absolute beginner, aren't lujvo by definition a nonce >>construction? And isn't that a good thing, because it allows the >>writer to express concepts unlimited by dictionaries and Academies >>of Language? > > > You're thinking of tanru. Tanru are a good thing. > > Lujvo are supposed to be defined with specific meanings and place > structures. Anyone can create them, but they should not be viewed > as nonce words. > I don't see why they shouldn't - it's just that anyone who creates a nonce lujvo should bear in mind that the reader/listener may not understand. It's just like a portmanteau word in a natural language - anyone can recognise that the recently-coined "alchopop" means same kind of fizzy drink with an alcohol content, but if I were to coin a term like "grat" to mean "a command involving grep and cat", only a few Unix afficionados would have a clue what I was talking about. BTW, Chinese does this to an extent most English people or even Lojbanists would find astounding. One of my Chinese teachers at university unconsciously transferred this to English and referredd to the external examiner as the "exterminator". robin.tr -- "A Perl script is "correct" if it gets the job done before your boss fires you." - Larry Wall Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Univeritesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin