[lojban-beginners] Re: du'e preti

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 14 April 2008 21:55, Minimiscience wrote:
>    3. When joining two <sumti> with <joi>, it doesn't actually seem
> necessary to
>       terminate the former one with <ku>.  The justification given in
> the LRG
>       (§14.14) only applies to poorly written parsers without look-ahead
>       capabilities, which yacc-generated parsers almost certainly are
> not.
>       Unless there exists a construct which can be either a <selbri>
> or a
>       <sumti> simultaneously, is there any good reason why <ku> should
> be
>       required here?

No, and the PEG doesn't require it.

>    8. How do you state that someone said a string of non-grammatical
> words that
>       include "<le'u>" but not "<zo>" or "<zoi>"?

With "zoi".

>   14. I am quite certain that I once read somewhere that the spaces in
> Lojban
>       text are unnecessary and that words can be unambiguously
> determined from
>       the text without them; however, I cannot find where I read this
> (if ever),
>       and the issues raised in the next three questions seem to go
> against that
>       claim.  Hence, just to be clear, are the spaces in Lojbanic text
> optional
>       & unnecessary?  Do the claim that Lojban sounds can be broken up
> into
>       words in exactly one way and the audio-visual isomorphism of the
> language
>       together imply that written Lojban does not change when the
> spaces are
>       removed?  How does the answer to this interact with the below
> three
>       queries?

*If the stresses on all brivla are marked*, and required pauses are marked, 
then spaces are unnecessary. "lojbójbenalójbojbénalojbojbéna" is clearly "lo 
jbojbe na lojbo jbena lo jbojbena". 

>   15. According to the Lojban Reference Grammar, chapter 4, section 9,
> item 5,
>       any monosyllabic <cmavo> before a <brivla> must be followed by a
> pause,
>       yet this would require an inordinate amount of pauses to be
> inserted into
>       text.  By "pause," does the LRG mean a <denpa bu>, in which case
> why has
>       no one been following this rule, or does it mean a space, in
> which case
>       how does this interact with Lojban's claims of audio-visual
> isomorphism
>       and that sounds can be divided into words in only one way?

An unstressed cmavo before a brivla doesn't need to be followed by a pause 
unless it ends in "y". A stressed cmavo before a brivla that begins with an 
unstressed syllable often needs it. "le krataigo" and "la pregunta" need the 
pause (the fact that "lekra" and "lapre" are not actually words is 
irrelevant, just that they are well-formed), while "lo skalduna" does not, 
because no word can begin with "ld", except a cmevla.

>   16. Section 17.4 of the LRG states that the spaces in <denpa bu> and
> <slaka
>       bu> are mandatory to avoid confusion with <fu'ivla>, yet the
> rules for
>       <fu'ivla> explicitly prohibit compounds of <gismu> & <cmavo>.
> Why is the
>       former restriction there?

"denPAbu" is not a compound of gismu and cmavo. "denPA" is not a 
gismu, "DENpa" is. "nPAbu" isn't a gismu either; no gismu can begin 
with "np". "paZGEti", on the other hand, is not valid, because "pa" 
and "ZGEti" are valid.

>   17. If the spaces are omitted from a text, how can one tell where a
> <fu'ivla>
>       ends?  For example, how do you know that "<cidjrspageti>" is
> entirely one
>       <fu'ivla> and not, say, "<ci djrspa ge ti>"?

"djrspa" is not a well-formed word because the initial consonant cluster 
contains "rs" and because it contains only one vocalic syllable, begins with 
at least two consonants, and ends in a vowel. "ge" and "ti" don't break off 
because "ge" is stressed.

>   18. When the LRG states that all <brivla> are emphasised on the
> penultimate
>       syllable, is it merely repeating a consequence of the
> pronunciation rules,
>       or is it indirectly requiring that the penultimate syllable of a
> <brivla>
>       not contain a syllabic consonant or "y"?  If the former,
> wouldn't it be
>       simpler for it to just state that <brivla> must have at least two
>       syllables?

All brivla are stressed on the penultimate y-less vocalic syllable.
bakrto (some Biblical ruminant) ->bákrto (not bakŕto)
lamyzma -> lámyzma

>   21. Why do the subunit <lujvo> listed in the notes for "<dekpu>" use
> the <se>
>       conversion rather than <ve>?

For that matter, how are subunit places used at all? How did Lojbanistanis 
measure before the introduction of the metric system? I've never heard of a 
customary system in a society advanced enough to have taxes, books, and 
clocks that has as few units as Lojban's does. Surely there must have been 
such units as the fi'urvo (=1/4 dekpu).

One clue is the number system, in which arbitrary rationals are expressed as 
improper, not mixed, fractions.

phma