[lojban-beginners] Re: distinction between gismu & cmavo

["Vid Sintef" <picos.picos@gmail.com>]

Thank you Robin. It's great to have a reply from someone like you.
Just to further improve my understanding of it:
cmavo is explained to be a "structure word" (on the word lists, for example), which is confusing to me because gismu seems to have stronger characteristics of that word which realizes a certain structural relationship between other words. 
Those conjunction cmavo like {e} or {joi}, as Pierre has pointed out, yes I can recognize their structural functions; but as to {mi} or {do}, how come they are called "structure words"? And also there're rafsi's and gismu's given meanings, "affix" and "root word, respectively; to me it is cmavo which seems to be an "affix" more than rafsi does, and rafsi to be a "root word" more than gismu does. Can I have a nice explanation for this, or is it some historical thing concerning Loglan?

sintef

On 5/20/07, Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 06:27:31PM +0100, Vid Sintef wrote:
> My understanding is that every gismu consists of 5 letters. But on
> the gismu list I find those various words of less than 5 letters.
> {mi} is an example.

{mi} is a cmavo; it is listed on the gismu list solely because it
has a rafsi, and the cmavo list format doesn't have room for those.

-Robin

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