[lojban-beginners] Re: gismu abbreviations?

[Jorge "Llambías" <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar>]

--- MaryJo Wood wrote:
> ...but I also noticed some extra columns of what
> looked like 3-letter abbreviations of most of the
> gismu. 

These are called rafsi, and are used as building blocks
to form compound words. In addition to the 3-letter
forms listed there, every gismu has a rafsi which
consists of the gismu itself with the final vowel replaced 
by 'y' and which can be used in any position but last
in a combined word, and the gismu itself can be used in 
last position. So from {barda} and {zdani} you can make 
the compound word {bardyzdani}, or you can reduce it 
(using the short rafsi {bra} for {barda} and {zda} for 
{zdani}) to {brazda}. {bardyzdani} and {brazda} are 
two possible forms of the same word.

> At first I thought I was getting it ("oh, so
> THAT'S how they made the word malglico!"), but I'm
> actually getting worried right now.  Not only do many
> of the gismu have multiple abbreviations, which I'm
> guessing are alternates, but the method of deriving
> the abbrevations don't seem to stick to any set
> pattern.

That's about right. There are a few restrictions on which
kind of rafsi a given gismu could have. For example, for
{sakli} sak, sal, sa'i, sai, ska and kli are the only
possibilities ('sal' is the actual rafsi).

The reason there is no rule to obtain the rafsi from the 
gismu is that there are many more gismu than available rafsi, 
so a choice had to be made as to which gismu were considered
potentially more useful for combinations.

You can read more about all this here:
<http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter4.html>

> One of the key selling points for Lojban that got me
> interested in learning it was that it doesn't have a
> bunch of exceptions to the rules and all like English
> does.  But these abbreviations just remind me of
> English's rampant messy irregularities.

The truth is that while Lojban is much more regular than 
English in most respects, it isn't "perfect" in any sense,
and it probably couldn't possibly be, because what someone
may consider an imperfection someone else might consider
an asset. Since most Lojbanists seem to be like you and me
in liking patterns and disliking exceptions, the language
may even evolve in the direction of regularity in some
areas, but in the case of rafsi this is hard to see happening. 
In the end you have to weigh all the strong points of the 
language against the inevitable imperfections and decide 
whether you like the product as a whole. Some of the 
imperfections may even grow on you after a while and you 
might even end up liking them :).

mu'o mi'e xorxes

 




		
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