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Re: [lojban] Digest Number 1753

Message: 2
   Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 00:00:22 -0400
   From: Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: emotions

At 06:38 PM 5/26/03 -0700, Jorge "Llambías" wrote:

As for usability in lujvo, one that I've often missed is something
correponding to Esperanto -inda, "deserving of".


We considered "deserve" as a gismu, and decided that it was polysemous.  It
either is the perfective of earned, or it is innately-obliged to
So, jerna! Would not have thought of it, since I was thinking in monetary terms, but I guess the expansion is licit. Jorge? 


 >This goal was sort of defeated by the English keyword list. People

learn the keywords to the point that they sometimes use the wrong
place structure because of a misleading keyword.


I think that depends on whether they memorize the keywords before they
start using the language..  Certainly that error happens, but I think
people move beyond it quickly.  The words I have the most problem with, are
the words that most resemble English.
Bob, you're doing anti-prescriptivist voodoo again. It's not "use" per se that is fixing such misapprehensions. The prescribed definition of gismu is given in the keyword and the place structure, with the place structure ruled to be the ultimate authority --- not usage. Which is why it is still possible to say "wrong" to people, rather than "different dialect". 


All this takes time, which I've been short of while tackling other fires
(Nick keyworded most of the file on one of his visits here).

Those other fires are why I resent people saying I should be adding
bonafide words to compete with the illegitimate ones.
Not *you*, FFS. Someone. But in the new, Wiki-inspired spirit, yes: one's moral authority on issues of language design is coloured by whether they're prepared to do the work it entails. 


Message: 3
   Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 00:08:05 -0400
   From: Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: emotions

 >Also, the set of bird gismu is decidedly lopsided: two Anseriformes, two

Galliformes, and none of any other order including the most speciose by far,
Passeriformes.


The birds that were added were primarily because they were major food birds
or they were especially symbolic in many cultures.

I've said it before, Pierre, that Lojban was NOT trying to design to the
Linnean system, and indeed we explicitly chose not to - a good thing since
there were only 2 kingdoms when we started instead of the present 5 or 6;
we never had a gismu for algae, blue-green or otherwise.  JCB always
intended Linnean classification to use fu'ivla, and indeed he had a formal
borrowing scheme to use in making Linnean names.
And yet, because I will flame Pierre elsewhere on other matters, I must say: thank you, Pierre, for actually forcing us to examine which gismu do apply where, and whether the existing gismu do blanket semantic space of animals (which is very much a legitimate field of enquiry). Pierre's venture in this regard is not windmills and not useless; and if it comes up with 10 or so gismu proposals, there are certainly much more trivial proposals out there than that. His work, like Jorge, may vex the fundamentalist, but it is indisputably for the good of the language.
Of course, I coined "died in the arse" as an objection to the culture-specific criteria for making organism terms gismu; so I'm biased. 



Message: 9
   Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 09:34:36 +0200
   From: "Gregory Dyke" <lojban-out@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: Parasite

Although all parasites are probably organic, it is absolutely useless to
include "organic" in the lujvo, much like the word bangu is useless in this
sentence "mi tavla fo le fraso bangu". For me, the idea breaks ro nitcu into
those which are organic and those which are not. So as jmive (or whatever
the Lojban is for organic) does nothing to help people understand in what
way a nitcu differs from a ji'etcu - well it does, doesn't point to
parasite - I'd say that the jmive part is totally useless.
I think you're wrong, because the point is not whether the referent is organic, but whether the 'host' is. 


As well as that, I understand jmive as meaning "alive", not organic. Does a
parasite cease being a parasite when it's dead?


Tense problem again.


Message: 11
   Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 09:22:27 +0100
   From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Re: emotions

Okay. Nick & Lojban say that any deviation from the prescription
is bad per se. I say that deviation is bad in proportion to the
adverse consequences it has (in terms of causing us to not speak
the same language). There's not much more to be said about that.
The difference being, is the standard policed legalistically, or with a little wiggle room. I don't want the wiggle room because I think the standard needs to stay separate as a formal object (a notion you should like, although *sigh* I doubt Lojban will *ever* satisfy you as a formal object.) The Lojban that actually ends up used --- and is used right now --- will *of course* deviate in many ways from such a standard. But the standard is what we're convoked to define. 


(I agree with xorxes that ironically the discussedness of
experimentals means that they stick in the memory better than
many official words.


Which truly, truly sucks...


Message: 12
   Date: Tue, 27 May 2003 09:22:33 +0100
   From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>
Subject: Re: emotions

 > No one has been hurt, so far as I know, by "le du'u"/"le se du'u" and

 "la'edi'u" being longer than one syllable, and I can imagine few things
 that need a shorter one


I am an atypical lojbanist, but I have been hugely bugged by "lo'edu'u"
and xorxes by "la'edi'u". They don't actively harm me, but it pains me
to use them, to the extent that it poisons my pleasure in using Lojban.
It wouldn't surprise me if future newcomers to Lojban who had the sort
of refined linguistic sensibilities one observes in the likes of
xorxes would be similarly pained.

Not that I don't think it is too late to change Lojban. Lojban is far
into the "take it ot leave it" stage, and can no longer be adapted to
suit the tastes or even the needs of its users.


While this is mostly true, there's a non-zero chance you'll get {laudu'u}.
la'edi'u, OTOH, I don't see as having a snowball's chance, because the point that it is compositional is so important. (We need to police the la'e/lu'e distinction.) We can consider an exptal cmavo equivalent to just la'edi'u, but I would be prejudiced against it. And I gotta say, I have not felt la'edi'u to be overlong, the way I would feel lo'edu'u --- I think because la'edi'u is its own NP, and lo'edu'u a determiner.
Like I say, And, the vote on lau/toi/foi is not out yet; there is a non-zero chance they'll be reallocated. (Although I admit the pertinent shepherd is not as enthusiastic about this as I am...) Let's wait till the vote. 


--
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* Dr Nick Nicholas,  French & Italian Studies       nickn@unimelb.edu.au *
  Rm 637 Arts Centre, Melbourne University, Australia    www.opoudjis.net
*    "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the       *
  circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson,
* _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987.    *
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****