Re: 02 botany

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx]

At 04:16 PM 9/2/99 +0400, sklyanin@pdmi.ras.ru wrote:
>02 botany
>
>Questions:
>
>Do I understand correctly that the interpretations marked with (adjective:)
>refer to the meanings of a gismu as a first component of a compound (tanru)?

correct

>I thought that any metaphoric usage is explicitely discouraged in lojban.
>Still, I see many notes [metaphor: ...] in the dictionary.

Metaphoric usage is discouraged 1) because most metaphors are culturally 
dependent and 2) because they make place structures less predictable.

When the gismu list was made, predictability of place structures wasn't 
thought possible, so only issue 1) was important. For those gismu that 
have a specified "metaphor", we made some effort to see if the metaphorical 
usage was international and not just English, and also that the given 
object did not have a conflicting interpretation (for example, the "owl" 
suggests 'professorial', 'academic', or 'wise' in English, but represents 
'death' in China, so we did NOT include a gismu for "owl" based on 
metaphorical potential). The use of "head" for the top part of something, 
however, seems quite international, so metaphors using "head" for "top" 
would be more acceptable in Lojban, than metaphors based on "owl".

The primary words we figured might have metaphorical usage are body parts, 
plants, animals, and chemical elements. We also included "jade" and 
"lotus" specifically because they at least stereotypically seem to be 
commonly used in oriental (especially Chinese) metaphor, and we wanted to 
explicitly cater to that culture that we English speakers knew the least 
about. But I don't think we clearly decided on a particular metaphorical 
meaning.

I think for the Russian list it is especially important to include the 
metaphorical definitions if Russians might use those words metaphorically 
in the indicated way. I believe for example, that I read a Russian poem 
where the "heart" was clearly associated with emotions, as in English, and 
thus if we listed "heart" as having a metaphorical linkage with 
emotionalism, there is some basis for saying that this metaphor might be 
understood internationally.

Now with the fact that there already is a gismu for "emotion", such a 
metaphor is probably unnecessary. And with the preference against 
metaphors for place structure predictability reasons, I would expect 
"heart" to seldom be used for "emotion" in metaphor.

However a poet like Michael Helsem seems to value using metaphors wherever 
he can permissibly get away with them, so I am not entirely unhappy that we 
have some remnants of the more metaphorical concept of Lojban tanru and 
lujvo still in the language.

>lichens and mosses are very far apart. A lichen is hardly more then a mass
>of symbiotic cells of a fungus and an alga. A moss is a highly organized
>plant with many kinds of specialized cells, tissues, organs. In my English-
>-Russian dictionary the word moss has two translations: 1. ÍÏÈ (=moss) with
>remark (botanical) 2. ÌÉÛÁÊÎÉË (lichen) labelled as "colloquial". I have
>impression that the lojban vocabulary has a deliberate "scientific" flavor,
>so I would rather classify lichens as "mledi" (fungus, mold).

The denotation is closer to that of mosses, and the concept was the mass of 
non-flowering greenery plants; you might also include ferns in this 
definition, but I think we were less sure that would hold. At least in 
older classifications (not sure of the current biology), while a lichen was 
a symbiote, it was a symbiote that was considered to be in the plant 
kingdom rather than the animal kingdom.

Now we have 7 or 8 kingdoms worth of biological taxonomy, and I don't know 
that lichens are still considered plants. I know that algae are sometimes 
plants and sometimes in a separate kingdom, and that bacteria have a couple 
kingdoms all to themselves and are no longer considered animals. But 
Lojban gismu making was based on Loglan gismu making which dates back to 
1950, when biological taxonomy seemed as fixed as the stars (which of 
course aren't fixed, so we should have known better zo'o).

>"gurni" (grain): is it a mass or individual grain?

Yes. We were non-specific. A lujvo would distinguish.

When I comment like this on historical intentions for the gismu list, I 
will also send them to Lojban List where others can comment and/or be 
informed of those intentions. Tommy Whitlock, if he is actively reading 
the list, is the other person outside of Nora and myself who helped make 
the gismu list and might remember historical arguments. Jorge and others 
from non-English backgrounds can comment on the malglico that remains in my 
definitions, but it must be remembered that the original gismu list, while 
concerned about malglico, was also concerned with preserving commonality 
with JCB and his TLI version of Loglan for purposes of reconciliation.

lojbab
----
lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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