Re: [lojban] Re: non-core translations

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 07:26 PM 8/6/02 +0000, araizen wrote:
> la lojbab cusku di'e
> > I think you are misconstruing the baseline.
> Indeed I was. In fact, how you describe the situation, all that is
> really baselined is the list of actual gismu with their general
> meaning as set by the keyword. Everything else could theoretically be
> open to debate and change if a consensus is reached. I was under the
> impression that the whole list was baselined and would be considered
> the defining document for the dictionary.

Your former impression is correct.  The baselining clearly was intended to 
freeze the place structures as well as the words and keywords.  I opposed 
freezing the place structures but was outvoted.  Even so, baseline or not, 
ANYTHING can be changed by consensus of the community since we are hardly a 
dictatorship by a cabal as people have (hopefully jokingly) suggested.  But 
consensus is unlikely to be reached on anything more than minor stuff 
BECAUSE of the baseline.

> I think that the gismu list, as it is currently organized, consists
> of three parts: keyword, basic definition for logflash, longer
> definition with clarifications, lujvo, etc.

We don't have much in the way of "longer definitions" which I think is what 
most people would wish for as "clarification".  There are notes beyond 
column 160 of the gismu list, but they are indeed "notes" and not 
definitions.  If longer definitions with clarification could be agreed upon 
by consensus, and they did not contradict the shorter definitions, they 
could probably be used without it being a violation of the baseline, but 
getting such consensus on any of the words needing clarification is the 
problem.

>  When translating, for
> example, the most important thing is to get a keyword for the gismu,
> and then you translate the base definition, and then the additional
> clarification (the additional clarifications have not yet been
> translated into Spanish, for example, though perhaps they didn't
> exist when that translation was made). You could leave the current
> definition in place and still add clarifications which could be
> considered part of the baseline when the dictionary is published.
> (Either by adding a new clarification section, or by adding to the
> last clarification section with the lujvo etc.) It is well known that
> there are many gismu whose keyword is very misleading, and the
> generally accepted solution is simply to ignore the keyword and
> concentrate on the entire definition. If you need to change the
> baseline definition, you could do it with minimal damage to the long
> accepted definition.

I agree that the keyword is NOT a particularly important thing to be 
translated.  Indeed, more importan that exact meanings for "translating" 
keywords is to look at the gismu etymology (where the target language is 
one of the base languages or is cognate with one of those languages for the 
concept, as well as the meaning, and to remember the LogFlash requirement 
for unique keywords.

lojbab

--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org