Re: [lojban] Wrote my first twenty definitions on Jbovlaste — looking to have them reviewed.

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Thursday, 7 June 2018 14.40.11 EDT xabju wrote:
> Hi Pierre,
> 
> Thanks for your feedback! *snitc* was a joke entry, which I somewhat regret
> posting (it was late, my judgment wasn't good). I was thinking of the
> much-hyped upcoming Death Grips album *Year of the Snitch*, but the word
> could also be used when you need to call your English-speaking interlocutor
> a snitch in a way they'll immediately understand.

Or what about the Golden Snitch?

> I used *cunso* in *cunrafsi* because the note on sutysisku
> <https://la-lojban.github.io/sutysisku/en/#sisku/cunso> has the gloss
> "arbitrary", which is the sense I was going for. What would you suggest
> instead?

I'd say "naljvarafsi", but there are still some rules for short rafsi.

> Those glosses for *mudga'a* were absentminded mistakes. Thank you for
> catching them. They now read as I think they should: "wooden cane", "wooden
> pole", "wooden staff", "wooden stick". I've changed the x2 keyword to "wood
> source; tree(s)". Is that alright?

The glosses are good, but I still don't see why the word needs an x2 keyword.

> Your point is taken on *UUTC*. My thinking was that it would be unfair to
> force speakers of final-obstruent-devoicing languages to distinguish final
> voiced consonants in pausa (as Lojban mandates), but I understand why many
> may prefer *uudj*. The bigger question, for me, is whether it's right to
> put monosyllabic cmevla in all caps. It looks very odd, but I presume that
> most speakers stress these words when they say them aloud. What do you
> think?

I think it's unnecessary to mark stress on monosyllables. (I also prefer the 
accent mark to capitalization, but that's another question.)

In Colombia I saw "la app". I agree that it's feminine, but I'm not sure 
whether it's "el app". In Spanish there's a rule, which arose centuries ago 
when the article was changing from "ela" to "la", that if the next word starts 
with stressed /a/, the feminine article is "el", e.g. "el agua". "App", of 
course, is a recent borrowing, but "haz", a variant of "faz", is another 
monosyllabic feminine noun beginning with /a/. I'm pretty sure (but not 
totally) that "haz" arose long after "ela agua" became "el agua". A word 
ending in "p" or "z" (as opposed to one ending in "n" or "s") is, by default, 
stressed on the last syllable, so "haz" and "app" are stressed but "ron" is 
not, but that's an orthographic rule made up by the RAE. So I think the "el/la 
app" question is up to the RAE.

Another question about stress in cmevla is what to do in a polysyllabic one 
which has no stress. By default, stress is on the next-to-last syllable, 
ignoring syllabic consonants and skipping syllables whose only vowel is "y". 
But some languages have no stress, or have other things, such as tone.

> Also, what do you think of my most recent lujvo entries? Again, I'm not as
> worried about the cmevla, unnecessary as some of them may be.

They look much improved. I still think that it's unnecessary to put a keyword 
for every place.

For "darkling beetle" I'm thinking "mancakcinki". The common and scientific 
names ("tenebrae" means "darkness") refer to the beetles' habit of dwelling in 
dark places.

I think "kalcycinki" should be "kalcycakcinki" if it refers just to dung 
beetles. There are other insects that eat dung, such as some flies.

Can anyone explain why the definition of "cinki" says "insect/arthropod"? Maybe 
it's because "lokra" hadn't been invented yet, maybe it's to allow for 
Linnaeus's original Insecta which included all arthropods. Normally in lujvo, 
"cinki" should be restricted to hexapods, "jukni" to chelicerates, and "lokra" 
to crustaceans; as to centipedes and millipedes, vlanuncau. (I didn't invent 
"lokra"; I just entered it.)

Pierre
-- 
gau do li'i co'e kei do

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