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

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Sun, May 20, 2007 at 08:00:42PM +0100, Vid Sintef wrote:
> 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. 

They alter the grammatical nature of the sentence, rather than
providing actual content.  brivla (of which gismu are a type) are
like English nounds, adjectives and adverbs.  cmevla (name words)
are proper names.  cmavo are everything else; articles,
conjunctions, and so on.

> 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"? 

It's really best to not use English terms when discussing Lojban
grammar.  They are cmavo that can take the place of a sumti.

> 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?

Huh?

rafsi are affixes because you join them together to make longer
words.  They are not words in themselves; they cannot be spoken as
single words.  I don't get how you see rafsi as root words, as they
are not words at all.

gismu are called root words because they are the roots of meaning in
the language (discounting fu'ivla).

But again, it's really best to not use English terms when
describing/discussing Lojban words; they are what they are, and
there mostly aren't any direct English equivalents.

-Robin

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