Re: [lojban] Re: Thoughts on lojban prosody

[<tbovee@daypoems.net>]

Thanks for pointing out the haiku. Read aloud, they have a very Japanese feel, which I definitely do not get when I read English-language haiku.

Regarding rhyme, my thought is that any language that ends predominantly in open syllables (Japanese, certainly; lojban, if you consider gismu alone) will have more rhymes than one that includes consonant endings (English).

Strong rhymes in English prosody certainly must be from the stressed vowell forward (although there are many lame rhymes in our poetry). Even with that restriction, it seems reasonable that a vowel-terminating language would have more rhymes than a consonant-terminating one. (I.e., you can rhyme catra and matra without worrying about a--hypothetical and non-existent--catrak and matrab, where ending consonants spoil the rhyme.) 

Actually, since there exists a good database of gismu and since the language is phonetic, it shouldn't be too difficult of a project to calculate the number of potential gismu rhymes. Checking English or some other non-phonetic language would be far more difficult.

Tim Bovee
tbovee@daypoems.net
http://www.daypoems.net


> 
> From: Jorge "Llambías" <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar>
> Date: 2003/12/09 Tue PM 02:07:41 EST
> To: lojban@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [lojban] Re: Thoughts on lojban prosody
> 
> 
> --- tbovee@daypoems.net wrote:
> > Rhyme, I think, does not work very well in a language where most words ends
> > in a vowel--there are just too many possible rhymes, there's no challenge,
> > and so the reader is denied the pleasure of hearing a clever rhyme. 
> 
> My understanding is that in order for two words to rhyme, they
> must be equal from the stressed vowel on, not just end with the same 
> vowel. So {catra} rhymes with {matra}, but not with {tavla}.
> 
> Here are a couple of rhyming limmericks in Lojban:
> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=doi+dirba
> 
> > I wonder, however, if it makes sense to consider lojban a strongly stressed
> > language. Since the aim of lojban is to be culture neutral, and since a large
> > portion of the human race speaks languages that do not recognize stress as a
> > linguistic element, then would it not be better to regard lojban neutral on
> > the question, to be stressed or unstressed according to the speaker's
> > preference?
> 
> Unfortunately, stress is used as a key element in Lojban to avoid
> ambiguity in the resolution of words.
> 
> > A syllabic count scheme, something like the Japanese haiku and waka, would
> > work nicely with lojban, with its vocabulary of short words. One could pack a
> > lot of imagery into a 5-3-5 syllable count.
> 
> Here you can find some Lojban haiku:
> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=pemcrxaiku
> 
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
> 
> 
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