From lojban+bncCJXJ1o3JGhCVu9TnBBoEc88Qww@googlegroups.com Tue Nov 30 07:52:02 2010 Received: from mail-gx0-f189.google.com ([209.85.161.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PNSUp-0001D8-S9; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:52:02 -0800 Received: by gxk19 with SMTP id 19sf4933386gxk.16 for ; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:51:54 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received :mime-version:received:received:date:x-ip:user-agent :x-http-useragent:message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-sender :reply-to:precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help :list-archive:sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; bh=cMlfPW+xXWDqR4IfIIiZ+h4s7D8sEFPAofEiINY/mYo=; b=UVoyfpvuco3i0QoPIwFmsmcPfkPWQendSVicTZL9JoVZ5hwClladqfUJctzCWbnn3w YZaV2mtdv0ZWNtrv7ssMFl06Or6JwXF2fa8PujSRoLjZdQ0PR594/WOMzZZ9iIFCYVyr CV5Sf6/CCkzM/MX41RYgTmMlJyfr7PZRZk8v4= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:mime-version:date:x-ip:user-agent:x-http-useragent :message-id:subject:from:to:x-original-sender:reply-to:precedence :mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; b=rgOY95Y3TYvW4BxZ0wqN9i0QVYk76cq9u3sJWkdPJHVN5qjZgj+QjSSwi3gr6Pgv10 SZNrVKcSj8mO9jU5qxDRsZ5IDqeaQE2LDc6qJpdLe/44WAODQZaF9b9WX7UOF2vkqGYJ EVDBgP27dAir4uTbHUgcWzHX06vyovKfxjXhA= Received: by 10.91.218.18 with SMTP id v18mr554310agq.48.1291132309382; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:51:49 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.151.135.18 with SMTP id m18ls4066560ybn.1.p; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:51:48 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.150.92.1 with SMTP id p1mr1923967ybb.5.1291132308673; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 07:51:48 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.142.150.10 with SMTP id x10mr282929wfd.56.1291119484508; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:18:04 -0800 (PST) Received: by f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com with HTTP; Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:18:04 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:18:04 -0800 (PST) X-IP: 76.174.199.98 User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu/10.10 Chromium/9.0.595.0 Chrome/9.0.595.0 Safari/534.13,gzip(gfe) Message-ID: <547f2fd5-c8a4-4dec-acee-97412386bf83@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com> Subject: [lojban] Question about apparent inconsistency with "nixli". From: Pan Mistwood To: lojban X-Original-Sender: panmistwood@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Back when I first dove into learning Lojban, I noticed an apparent inconsistency with four gismu. And as far as I can tell, there's no reason for it, but I could be mistaken. So, after much procrastination, I'm asking about it here. (And as far as I could find with Google Web search and a search within this group, it hasn't been brought up before, which is rather surprising to me.) The gismu "nanmu" virtually means the English "man" or, more generally, "male humanoid". The gismu "ninmu" virtually means the English "woman" or "female humanoid". The gismu "nanla" virtually means the English "boy". Now, I understand that they are not preferred over the gismu "verba", "remna", and "prenu", but they do exist and are recognised as Lojbanic gismu. From those gismu, I can see a pattern. "nanmu" and "nanla" share "na-" while "nanla" and "nanmu" share "-mu". Following this pattern, the gismu virtually meaning the English "girl" would be "ninla"; "ni-" as in "ninmu" and "-la" as in "nanla". However, the gismu is actually "nixli". My question: as "ninla" is valid gismu syntax, is consistent with "nanmu", "nanla", and "ninmu", and is not already used to mean something else, why is "nixli" used instead? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.