[lojban-beginners] Re: nitcu le denpa lerfu fi ma

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Dec 26, 2007 4:36 PM, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   No, no, you misunderstand me... there is no pause between "jai" and
> "reicnz", but there was BEFORE jai .... since lojban does not need a pause
> after the closing quote-word (or ANY word, except of course if it ends in a
> consonant (or any other spot the grammar requires it)) the pause before
> gyrations would be "heard" as "close quote-reicns" which would therefore be
> ungrammatical, since a cmevla couldn't appear in that position.

But that's not right. It is not enough to hear the sounds "j" "a" "i"
in a row in
order to know that you have heard the word {jai}. In order to know that you
have the word {jai} those sounds must be either followed by a pause, by
another cmavo or by a brivla. If they are followed by anything else, you don't
have the word {jai}. You have either the beginning of a cmevla or the beginning
of a non-word string, neither of which can be the closing delimiter.

>  Remember..
> The point of the la'o and zopi is to quote foreign things.  In those
> languages, the rules for pausing etc. might conceivably be different.

Of course, but that doesn't matter. After each pause you have to check
whether what follows is the delimiter word.

> The
> ONLY way for a parser (human or computer) to tell if it's over is to hear
> pause+guard word.

Exactly. Pause+guard WORD, the delimiter must be a word not the
beginning of one.

> As soon as that condition is met, the quote is done, and
> real lojban starts once again.

Exactly. And until you know you have the word, the condition is not met.
In the string {.jaireicnz} you don't have the word {jai}.

> (similarly, in written text, spaces aren't
> necessary, and "." are necessary sometimes unless spaces are used.  Since
> the typographic conventions for the stuff inside the quotes can be
> different, the parser has to know by a space+word or period+word.  As soon
> as that's encountered, the quoting stops.)

Correct. Space-or-period + WORD, not part-of-word.

I understand that CLL says that the sounds cannot appear even if they don't
actually form the word, but that is an unnecessary restriction and in
fact it is
harder to implement in the parser. It is easier for the parser to just compare
words, not parts of words. (And that's what camxes does, in fact.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes