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[lojban] Re: Lojban-English full dictionary effort- request for assistance

Jorge Llambías wrote:

On Jan 3, 2008 5:59 PM, Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:


Jorge Llambías wrote:


For this question, only the x1 place is relevant.


If there is no x2 place defined for xxxyyy then the selkemxxxyyy lujvo
has no obvious meaning.


Right, but is that the question we were discussing?


Apparently you are discussing a different question than I am %^)


To answer the question "will selxxxyyy be more likely understood as
sel(xxxyyy) or as (selxxx)yyy?" you only need to know what the x1
of selxxxyyy is. All lujvo I looked at in jbovlaste of form selxxxyyy are
clearly intended as (selxxx)yyy, because their x1 corresponds to
the x1 of xxxxx, not to the x2 of xxxxx.
I don't see how that would be germane to either question. The x1 of the compound is more likely to be based on the x1 of yyyyy, on the assumption that the compound is based on some permutation of the tanru xxxxx yyyyy. That should be true whether it is sel- or selkem- 

If I am still missing your point, I suggest an example from the list.


If mere tens have been
used to make meaningfully multi-placed lujvo, that is a couple of
percent. Now we are trying to conclude how many of those lujvo will be
used in meaningful compounds, and I see no reason why we would expect
more than a couple of percent.  A couple of percent of "tens" could
easily be less than 1.


Tens are the lujvo of form selxxxyyy, not those of form xxxyyy.
I was asking asked what the number of lujvo built from two or more gismy that have place structures defined, wherein people have defined more than the x1 of the lujvo, and where any oblique places of the lujvo is sufficiently a "word" concept that it might be the basis for the conversion to be made into a lujvo.
If the x2 of xxxyyy is not a wordlike concept, then no one will make a lujvo selkemxxxyyy (whether or not the kem can be elided is a secondary question that is based on whether selxxxxx yyyyy is a tanru that makes any sense).
This still doesn't mean that we don't need to define what the x2 of xxxyyy is, however, if we want people to use the word lojbanically. Furthermore, UNLESS we define the oblique place structure of xxxyyy, no one will ever know whether selkemxxxyyy might be useful. 


There must be hundreds of two rafsi lujvo.
I'm sure. I am also sure that a large percentage of them are selxxxxx, nunxxxxx, etc, and hence have pretty automatic place structures, but also have place structures that aren't especially useful in making still longer compounds. 

> And among those tens,

not one that I could find is meant as sel(xxxyyy), they are all
(selxxx)yyy.


One would think that the former would be expressed as selkemxxxyyy.


Thus selkemxismalsi is English "parish"
and terkemxismalsi is English "denomination".


Right. You need -kem-, otherwise they would most likely be
interpreted as some kind of temple.
They shouldn't be. terxismalsi should be perfectly as acceptable as terkemxismalsi, since there is no terxriso 


These lujvo will not exist until a) people want to talk about the
subject matter, b) a place structure for the simpler term is settled, c)
people are sufficiently confident about their lujvo making competence to
bother making lujvo


And that's assuming people ever want to use 4-rafsi lujvo.
I think it's much more likely that {se xismalsi}, {te xismalsi}
will be preferred.


That will probably be the case for
a) those used to languages with short words
b) concepts that have not seen enough usage as a singular concept to warrant making a unitary word from them (and figuring out a distinct place structure)
It will take a lot of specialized usage before people will WANT to make such words, and they will usually be jargony - I tried to choose an area like religion for my example, because jargony terminology in religion often enters the common vocabulary; the same would probably be true of politics, but in politics there is too little agreement about what the *English* words mean to translate them into Lojban (I refer to arguments in the past about the 'proper' Lojban words for democratic, socialist, tyranny, etc).
Probably only computer and linguistic terminology in Lojban is well enough understand, and enough-used for even the possibility of making such jargon-lujvo to be worth considering. 

lojbab



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