[lojban] Re: emotions

[Jorge "Llambías" <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar>]

la djorden cusku di'e

> [...]
> > > I think this all rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of lojban
> > > word classes.  People like to think about gismu, cmavo and lujvo.
> > > But it's actually brivla, cmavo and cmene. 
> > 
> > Morphologically, the classes are gismu, cmavo, lujvo, fu'ivla and cmene.
> 
> Right.
> 
> > Syntactically, the classes are BRIVLA, CMENE, KOhA, A, BAI, TAhE, VAU,
> etc...
> 
> I.e. brivla, cmavo and cmene, as I mentioned.

cmavo is not a syntactic class, it is a morphological class.
GOhA for example is syntactically much closer to BRIVLA than
to any other selma'o. gismu are priviledged morphologically,
not syntactically, over other brivla. In a similar way CV cmavo
are morphologically priviledged over CVV, and CV'V cmavo.

> [...]
> > > Gismu, lujvo and fu'ivla
> > > are just different types of brivla; none are more privledged than
> > > the others.
> > 
> > If that were so, then why all the fuss when a new gismu is proposed,
> > but no fuss when a new lujvo or fu'ivla is proposed? 
> 
> Because the gismu list is frozen, and there's no reason to prefer
> a gismu rather than another brivla. 

And yet people do seem to prefer gismu. They are used much more frequently
than other brivla.

> Having a good number of gismu
> is desirable, to get rafsi for forming lujvo, however if we decide
> we need more it needs to be because we need more for forming lujvo,
> not because someone thinks that gismu are privledged and that some
> concept (e.g., 'parasite') seems to be 'common' enough or 'important'
> enough to deserve it, or that all cultures should be given the
> supposedly privledged status.

Of course it won't be because of one person's decision. Only if people
use them will they be used.

> If you ask why it is frozen (as you no doubt will do); it would not
> be smart to allow open season on gismu:  the knee-jerk creation of
> gismu for things which can be other brivla damage our ability to
> increase rafsi for lujvo in the future (and in the process betrays
> a lack of understanding about the purpose of the different types
> of brivla).

Hmm... {parji} doesn't seem to limit any increase in future rafsi
availability, because par, paj, pai, pa'i are all already taken.

In any case, the best way to oppose these words is to provide
good canonical alternatives, as Nick said. Then people will choose
what they prefer in their usage. Talking so much about {parji} only
reinforces it in people's minds, so it is not an efficient way to
oppose it. (A similar campaign against {gumri} in the past helped
a lot to fix that word in my mind, so that it is now effectively a 
part of my active vocabulary, which I can't say is the case for all
official gismu.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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