your rafsi proposals, especially drata vs drani

[lojbab@grebyn.com (Logical Language Group)]

I believe all of your rafsi recommendations but one are likely to be followed.

I can't offer much justification or hope for dra switch to drata.

You say that there is not enough usage to prove much, but as you can see
in this message, we have an awful lot of proposed and used lujvo using
certain words - that is why I said a long time ago that if you felt a
word deserved a rafsi, a good half-dozen lujvo might be a minimum in
order to make it happen.

In the absence of better usage data, I have to use what we've got,
overriding the statistics only when I can make a good common sense
argument (as I'm now doing in stripping many of the culture and element
words of their rafsi, when it makes it possible to give them to words
that will be more widely used).  The alternative to a statistical
approach is our culturally biased instincts and aesthetics, and I just
don't trust them.  You can blame yourself for my increased trust in our
usage statistics, anyway:  1) your translations have covered a wide
range of topics, so as not to skew the data towards one field (and
indeed perhaps turning some of the previous skewings from JCB's data to
noise); 2) your bent towards dikyjvo means that the quality of your
typical lujvo is far more trustworthy in statistical analysis of how the
words will be used than that of the typical Lojbanist (or worse - old
Loglanist).  I may not want to formally commit to dikyjvo, but I
recognize that they often give a good first cut as to what a reasonable
lujvo should be.

Now to drani.

As the following Lojban usage data shows, there is more use of drani both
overall and in final position; and even with the Eaton data added in, there
are only 2 lujvo with drata in final position.  CCV and CVV rafsi have to
be preferred for gismu concentrated in the final position.  dat is perfectly
fine for the heavy majority of usages for drata in first position.

Neither rai/ra'i nor dai/da'i nor dan/ran are easily available to drani.
In addition, it is a convenient parallel in that srera has a CCV too: sre.

Similarly, da'a is well used by damba, and ra'a by srana; the latter has
other competitors that would beat out drata if it were deemed less
important.

It turns out that even if dra could be pried free from drani, darxi has
a much better claim on it than drata.  Indeed, it came fairly close in
the statistics, and will almost certainly grab either dai or da'i from
their current holders.

Supporting data:

Actual Lojban text

drani
1st pos
4      draselri'a        correct + 2nd-place-of + causes
4      drari'a           correct + causes
8      dragugvi'e        correct + country + guest
1      drabai            correct + force
1      dratra            correct + form
4      drapre            correct + person
3      drasratse         correct + vertical + sits
mid pos
2      sevdrari'a        dreamer + correct + causes
final pos
3      kavdrani          captures + correct
1      jbidra            nearby + correct
1      kazdrani          quality-of + correct
2      srasirdra         vertical + directly + correct

drata
1st pos
1      datygugvi'e       other-than + country + guest
4      datklu            other-than + culture
6      datpre            other-than + person
1      dratyzu'e         other-than + purposeful-agent
final pos
8      mordrata          pattern + other-than


TLI Eaton lujvo proposals

drani
1st pos
drani +zbasu
drani +fengu
drani +punji

mid pos
cliva +bartu +drani +pluta
rarna +drani +pajni
jikca +drani +zukte

final pos
nu +cenba +drani
bartu +ka +drani
xlali +drani
temci +drani

drata

1st pos
drata +se +stuzi
drata +claxu
drata +zukte
drata +dunda
drata +sevzi +xrani
drata +snada +djica
drata +stuzi +bajra
drata +claxu +cinmo
drata +stuzi +minde
drata +sevzi +punli +zbasu

mid pos
nu +drata +raktu +cinmo
nu +drata +claxu
djica +drata +prenu +se +ponse

final pos
mutce +drata

Meanwhile

The worst totally unsolvable problem so far appears to be kansa, with a
'uncovered' score of 19 in final position, but competing against katna
with an enormous 43 final score.  Neither has any alternative to ka'a,
so katna must win.  No solution short of changing a gismu, which is not
an option at this point.  By comparison, the worst problem with the
current rafsi assignments using the old statistics had only an
'uncovered' score of 8. To give you some idea why the usage statistics
are causing so much change, I have a list of more than 25 words that
have WORSE than 19 'uncovered scores' using the current rafsi
assignments.  I consider these to be must-fixes (barda/bra is only a 16
uncovered score by comparison), and 25 words means at least 50 rafsi
assignment changes (more likely 100+) which alone would constitute
much of the percentage change, which has crept back up to 15% again.


(Byu the way, the numbers in the left column are word frequencies.)