From jcowan@reutershealth.com Fri Jun 25 12:04:00 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 33710 invoked from network); 25 Jun 2004 19:03:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.167) by m21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 25 Jun 2004 19:03:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO skunk.reutershealth.com) (167.206.188.3) by mta6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 25 Jun 2004 19:03:59 -0000 Received: from skunk.reutershealth.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by skunk.reutershealth.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with SMTP id i5PJ3vnG004937; Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:03:58 -0400 Received: by skunk.reutershealth.com (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:03:57 -0400 Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:03:57 -0400 To: MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: <20040625190357.GE4376@skunk.reutershealth.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 167.206.188.3 From: John Cowan Subject: Re: [lojban] terminators X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=8122456 X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 22600 MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com scripsit: > There are currently 21 terminators in Lojban. Would it be possible (though > I'm not proposing it) to create just one terminator to be used with every > selma'o that currently has its own terminator? It would be, and in fact that was the original Loglan position. "ku" (Loglan "gu") was the only terminator at one time; its three current functions (terminate description, terminate bare tag, and in the compound "naku") are all that survive, all other termination functions having been moved to other cmavo. The difficulty with having just one terminator is that one must carefully count terminators and use neither too many nor too few: it's like writing in Lisp without editor support (the "%" key in vi, e.g.) In any event, we did not want Lojban to be a "kuku" language. :-) -- John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of resources is the purpose of markets. Efficiency is a byproduct of market systems, not their goal. The reasons markets work are not because users have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are not for conservation of cheap resources. --Clay Shirkey