[lojban-beginners] Re: Asking specific questions

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 7:16 PM, Minimiscience <minimiscience@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not entirely sure what "exceptions" xorxes was referring to, but I can't
> think of any that actually break any prior rules.  All of the {fu'ivla} listed
> on jbovlaste have a consonant pair in the first five letters, with the possible
> exceptions of a few words that break the rule if & only if you count
> apostrophes & leading periods as letters (which you're not supposed to do for
> the purposes of the rule).

Things like "ba'aunki". (Not that that specific word has been proposed
as a fu'ivla, it's just an example of the form.)

There is no reason for saying that that is not a valid fu'ivla, other
than the arbitrary five-letter rule. You could forbid it, but with no
reasonable justification. Notice that ".a'aunki" is perfectly fine,
which makes forbidding "ba'aunki" even more strange.

But that is not the biggest problem with the "five-letter rule". The
biggest problem is that people tend to misread it. All CLL says is
that all brivla have a CC in their first five letters. People read it
as saying that anything with a CC in the first five letters is a
brivla, which is just wrong. Consider for example "miklama", or
"slinku'i", or the form that started this, "xumymetano". They are not
brivla, even though they obey the famous "five-letter rule".

>  As for sequences with CCs in the first five letters
> that aren't {brivla}, just look at {cmene}.  I honestly have no idea what
> xorxes had in mind, but the only non-erroneous interpretation of his e-mail
> that makes any sense to me is that you shouldn't just blindly put all of your
> trust in the five-letter rule.  If there actually are any Lojban utterances
> that subvert the whole of the {brivla} morphology, I would very much like to
> see them.

There is no problem with the brivla morphology when expressed
correctly. The only problem is the silly "five-letter rule", which is
wrong both ways: it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for brivlahood.

mu'o mi'e xorxes