adam@cec.wustl.edu wrote:
trixe rix ti'e FAhA ti'a Why didn't they make the rafsi for trixe simply {ti'a}?The rafsi for a gismu can only contain letters from the gismu. So {trixe} couldn't possibly have {ti'a} as a rafsi.
Yes. A more interstest question is
why
{ti'e} isn't the FAhA for {trixe} (instead, it's a hearsay evidential,
evidently from {tinra}). Swapping {ti'e} and {ti'a} would seem to provide
better mnemonics for both, but it's far too late to be changing things like
that.
Precisely.Most of the cmavo were assigned in 1988-1989. The rafsi were determined in a separate process that was not completed until after the cmavo were assigned and in use. Then in 1993-1994, the rafsi were retuned to be better optimized for their purpose in shortening compounds.
Meanwhile, as originally designed, FAhAs were -not- intended to mean the same thing as the gismu they are tied to. The similarity to the gismu was merely a mnemonic to make the cmavo easier to learn. The systematic association of FAhA with the gismu (and the systematic use of SE+FAhA to access other places of the source gismu) came in 1990-1992, and with all of the other cmavo assigned, it was not even considered to change the cmavo to match the rafsi.
I think that when we retuned the rafsi, matching FAhA members with any newly assigned rafsi was an argument that was relevant in a few cases, so the cmavo are marginally more aligned with the rafsi (and vice versa) than they were originally.
Same as above. {zu'a} can't possibly be a rafsi for {zunle}.pritu (no rafsi) FAhA ri'u Why didn't they just let pritu have {ri'u} as a rafsi as well? For example, with nenri both the rafsi and FAhA are {ne'i}.Apparently it was thought that {rinju} was more deserving of the {ri'u} rafsi than {pritu}. Since rafsi space is pretty tight, you really can't have rafsi for everything, so sometimes you don't get what you want.
in particular (though I would have to check), pritu was probably used almost always in the modifying position of a tanru used to make lujvo, while rinju might appear either as modifier or modified. CVC rafsi were optimized for use in the modifier positions, since they cannot be used at the end of a word, whereas CVV rafsi placed extra emphasis on use in the final position.
Again, the process was done without considering FAhA, though the retuning might have considered FAhA for a couple of changes, all other things being equal.
lojbab