Re: first attempt at a proto-dictionary outline

[nsn (Nick Nicholas)]

>Lojban Proto-Reference Book - Preliminary Outline 2/19/93
>with estimated page counts by section

>3            About Lojban

I have the impression this will be more like 4 or 5; of course, we don't
want the intro to be too forbidding, so it can't exceed that.

>2            About this book

Maybe 3.

>     Lojban Orthography
>1            Letters and symbols
>1            optional conventions
>1                    Cyrillic Lojban
>1|           compounds
> |           text layout

This may actually be squeezed into just two pages, I suspect. Is it worthwhile
to include Eric Raymond's Tenguar orthography? Btw, not that this has ever
been considered, but is it worth employing "!" anywhere? Like before UI
words, or at least UI words that do not start with ".V".

>2            vowels, diphthongs, divowels

Maybe 1.

>1|                   lujvo
>2|                           scoring/choice of form

Depending on whether we present all the alternate scoring schemes, as we've
done on the past. Otherwise, this can be reduced to 1.

>1|                   le'avla
> |                   le'avla lujvo

This may be pushing 2, especially if we start addressing what form of the
word in the original langauge should be used for borrowing (Latin, for
example: infinitive vs. indicative present; ablative vs. nominative),
and which language to prefer (English or Latin, for example: particyn
[partiti], partitione)

>1                    *selma'o list
>20                           *short alphabetical definition, subcategories with
>                                     cmavo in each subcategory
>             terminals
>20                   *terminal list, definition, examples of each type?

What's the distinction between this terminals list and a cmavo list or the
selma'o list? Btw, it's no longer selma'o, as Iain has pointed out, but ma'okle.

>45                   *composite gismu etymologies

I think this is one of the lists you can afford to jettison if need be.

>8                    * non-Lojban alphabet and symbol set conventions

I'm a bit confused by what happened with the IPA attempt. Is it still in
or not? Also, we need to resolve a consistent way of handling diacritics.

>10           place structures of lujvo

I presume this is the paper I'm about to write. 10 pages is reasonable,
although of course the tentative, experimental nature of it all will have
to be stressed abundantly.

>45                   *lujvo actually in use - ~1800

My current list (after all the weeding out) looks more like 1700.

>                     *proposed lujvo  (possibly intermingled with preceding)

Yeah, intermingle them. Maintaining the distinction is too much of a hassle.

>45                           systematically created (se/te/ve/xe/nu/ka/ni/ri'a/gau/pre

Oh. well, a lot of these (the SE/NU ones) I've systematically excluded. But
ok, these too.

>                             Eaton/TLI lists (heavily weeded and edited)

This will eventually be my job, I take it?

>                             collected old proposals
>15                              ~1000

You mean, old ma'oste? Because all the proposals that have appeared in JL
have been included in my 1700.

>1            Lojbanizing of names
>3                    *some personal names

Say the word, and I'll start working on this too.

>3                    *some country/language names

What with the never satisfactorily resolved conflict on these, the emphasis
will be on *some*.

May be worthwhile including Mark's list of Biblical names.

>3                    *some plants/animals

I presume the policy I've used, and John's usually used, to use the Linnean
name (usually the genus) as the basis of the le'avla, is approved?

>198  *Lojban order dictionary ??? (composed of all preceding lists)
>        gismu(25),cmavo(20),rafsi(8),names(6),le'avla(12),lujvo(127)

Mm. Highly redundant, Lojbab, and we've done without one so far. Not at
all essential.

>310  *English-order dictionary
>        gismuX5,cmavoX2,names,le'avla,lujvo

Perhaps. Could be tricky, but I hope it can be made to work.

 %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%   %%%
non me tenent vincula, non me tenet clavis, % (nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au)
quaero mei similes et adjungor pravis.      % Nick Nicholas, striver, EE&CS,
      --- Archipoeta, _Confessio_.          % Univ. of Melbourne, Australia