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[lojban-beginners] the black hole of keyworditis

Quoting Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>:


I have long reiterated that the keywords were NOT definitions, and were
never intended to be.  They were designed to be short and unique for
typing into LogFlash when memorizing the words.
No one thinks that the keywords are supposed to fully define the words, or that they possibly could. It's simply that they feature prominently in the only dictionary available, so they're filling the void. 



The place structures are key, and when there are semantic issues not
resolved by the place structures, we intended that they be explained in
the notes at the end of each gismu entry out beyond column 160.
That's what I've been doing the whole time I've been studying Lojban, is analyzing the gismu place structures as described in a handful of English words to try to form my own conception of the underlying concepts. It doesn't work very well.
Let's take an example at random: zo xanka. The meat of the definition in the gismu list consists of only the English words "nervous" and "anxious." That gives me a vague idea, but those are two English words with substantially different meanings, there are words from every language in that area each with a variation on that meaning, and presumably Lojban's meaning is identical to none of these and has its own internal character.
The place structure has three places. The first is the person experiencing the emotion, which is simple enough. The second is defined, if we can call it that, by only the preposition "about", and the suggestion that it ought to be filled by an abstraction. The third place is defined as saying what "conditions" the event of xanka happens "under." Well excuse me if I am more mystified than before! Other emotion gismu such as badri, gleki, terpa, nelci, xebni, prami are all two places, and I have no idea why zo xanka gets a third, or what on earth the distinction is between the abstraction someone is nervous about and the conditions under which they are nervous. 

The clarification at the end reads only: "(cf. xalni, terpa, raktu)"



But since the concept of baselining, which originally was intended to
be only the words and the keywords, has been applied to the entire
file, we currently have no official mechanism to record clarifications.
 I got chewed out by the community for making minor changes to the file
on my own authority around 10-12 years ago, and so far as I know, no
one has had the authority to make changes since then.
I don't think it matters. What we need to do is step solidly beyond the file, to a source of information which is rich, deep, & diverse. People who are learning Lojban need to be able to go somewhere, type in "xanka", and get back more than just a few suggestive English words. We need an extensive explanation of what it feels like to be xanka, what the difference is between being xanka and being terpa, etc. We need a source of information about zo xanka that brings it to life, so that people who learn from that source share a rich concept of xanka that allows them to communicate with each other. 



I presume that there are unofficial collections of semantic
clarifications of gismu somewhere in the wikispace, but I don't do
anything involving online editing if I can help it, so I have little
idea what is in the wikispace.  But that is where I think such things
should be for now.
I agree that there should be, but to my knowledge there aren't. There needs to be not just any old space for discussing the meaning of gismu, but a space which is widely known, actively used & properly organized, if it's going to mean anything. There is no way to keep beginners from relying on the gismu list other than providing them with another viable option. 



Eventually, if byfy can finish its more important work,
it can look at editorial clarifications of the gismu list.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo I meant we should solve the problem in the real world, not in bureaucratic limbo!! :P
I have been thinking about how to attack this problem. This is the most concrete suggestion I can make so far: We should somehow develop a tradition of gimsnu, casnu be lo gismu, where we have productive discussions like the one we just had about zo skapi-- like the many such productive discussions we often have!-- but building upon one another, slowly accumulating a record of past gimsnu for each of the gismu. We should organize all of the gimsnu we have so that they are immediately accessible to beginners, as something they can turn to while learning, & while trying to read or write texts.
I don't think this would represent any radical change. We're already having gimsnu, we're just not having them in a way that's useful to newbies. Lojban won't be hurt by us talking about it. That's what it needs to come to life. 

mu'o mi'e doi bret.