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Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:59:57 -0400
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Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Preliminary chapter 1 for Lojban learners
From: Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
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Xorxes writes:
>
> >
> >  Says who?
>
> The grammar. There is a very simple test to check whether two things
> count as instances of the same word or not: Is "zoi PORtugal whatever
> portuGAL cu fange selsku" a valid sentence? The two delimiters for ZOI
> have to be the same word.

  I'd say it isn't (jbofi'e agress with, btw, not that that's any kind of test)

> But that's no relevant difference. Similarly you could use two
> different versions of "r" for the same name to try to convey that they
> refer to different people, but according to the rules of Lojban they
> will still be the same word

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
>  There are two Chinese provinces called "Shanxi" in
> different tones (in English one is spelled "Shaanxi", but it's a difference
> in tone, not vowel length). There are Ming (a dynasty, and someone I knew)
> and Min (a group of Chinese dialects).

  But both you and Xorxes are missing the point.  Unlike the two r's
(which lojban deems allophonic) and tone (which lojban deems to be
irrelevant), stress IS a distinct (and indeed important) phonological
feature in lojban, in addition to mandatory pauses (that's why you can
distinguish between the two word phrase CMAluGERku and the fui'vla
cmaluGERku even in the absence of the optional pauses).  Therefore, it
can be used to distinguish two words that would otherwise be the same.
 If you wanted to have a convention for writing tones, or different
types of "r", you would have to establish it, either in an ad hoc
basis for the document you were creating, or as an additional
morphological rule in the grammar, which currently doesn't have it.

  (BTW, the foregoing also implies that any orthography for lojban
that doesn't have a way of indicating unusual stress  is inadequate).


Xorxes:
>
> > (Chapter 4, section 8: "Names may have almost any form, but always end
> > in a consonant, and are followed by a pause. They are penultimately
> > stressed, unless unusual stress is marked with capitalization.")
>
> Yes, penultimate stress is the usual rule for cmavo too. That doesn't
> mean that changing the stress changes the word.

No, it's not.  Here's the corresponding section about cmavo (section
2): "There is no particular stress required in cmavo or their
compounds. Some conventions do exist that are not mandatory. For
two-syllable cmavo, for example, stress is typically placed on the
first vowel"  No  wording such as  "if it's not penultimately
stressed, it must be marked with capitalization".  Therefore, ka'o,
KA'O, KA'o, and ka'O are all the same word, and there is no default
stress.

Pierre:
> And some languages (e.g. French, in  some analyses, though I grew up with final stress) have neither stress nor
> tone. If words with no stress indicated have penultimate stress, how do you indicate no stress?

  Now, THAT is a good question.  Maybe the BPFK can come up with a
convention. (see above).

          --gejyspa