[lojban] Re: Semantics of lojban and glibau, and Lojban FrameNet revisited

[Jorge Llambías <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Apr 8, 2005 7:24 PM, Ben Goertzel <ben@goertzel.org> wrote:
> Taking this kind of approach to defining argument structures would seem to
> reduce the risk of odd inconsistencies occurring in the dictionary of
> argument-structures... I'm curious why a systematic approach like this
> wasn't taken in constructing the Lojban dictionary, since Lojbanoidic folks
> seem so interested in order and systematicity... it's odd that the
> argument-structures are only imperfectly and informally systematized, no?

In the particular case of culture words, their place structures are fortunately
very systematic. It's always: "x1 reflects XXXXX
culture/nationality/language/...
in aspect x2". I don't think there are any exceptions. {lojbo} has the same
structure as {glico} and so presumably lujvo made with them will also
have parallel structures. You just happened to pick a cmevla for Lojban and 
a lujvo for English, but you could have used cmevla for both or lujvo for both 
if you wanted to.

But the point is valid in general: gismu place structures have some truly
odd inconsistencies that are hard to explain, so instead of learning some
tens of patterns of place structures we have to learn hundreds.

Just as an example: words for living things have the very regular place 
structure "x1 is a XXXX of breed/race/species/variety/strain/cultivar/type x2".
But there are a few inexplicable exceptions that have to be learned
separately.

mu'o mi'e xorxes