Re: [lojban-beginners] .u'icu'i pe la jbofi'e (Something mildly amusing about Jbofi'e.)

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

On Saturday 09 October 2010 23:21:31 Jonathan Jones wrote:
> As usual, I checked it in jbofi'e to make sure it parsed correctly (, it
> didn't originally, because I used "bixgau". I can never remember when you
> have to use a buffer), and that I was saying what I thought I was saying.

"-y-" is an interfix, not a buffer. The buffer (I've seen a linguistic term 
for it somewhere) is a purely phonetic phenomenon, a short vowel stuck 
between two consonants which are allowed together by phonotactics but which 
some speaker has trouble pronouncing together.

The interfix "-y-" is used:
1. between morphemes to avoid a phonotactically impossible consonant cluster. 
This is the case with "bixygau", as "x" is a voiceless fricative and "g" is a 
voiced stop, and a voiced stop or fricative cannot be next to a voiceless 
stop or fricative.
2. after a four-letter rafsi (also with fu'ivla rafsi but I won't go into 
those), as in "dandygau".
3. to avoid the first two letters of a tosmabru from falling off, as 
in "cakyrespa". It's not needed in "cakmabru" because no word begins 
with "km" and ends with a vowel.

> In any case, when I was looking at the output, I noticed something mildly
> amusing; even though it's enclosed in "foreign name" quotes, jbofi'e
> returned "la'o gy Left vo Dead gy".

teehee! And if you say "la'o vo Left 4 Dead vo" you get an error.

Pierre
-- 
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

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