Re: lojban newbie: an outsider looking in

["Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>]

>I'm still not clear whether all gismu have the same patterns for
>their rafsi or not. Given a gismu you've never seen, should you
>be able to tell the rafsi?

You can't tell the three letter rafsi. Every gismu
has a combining form made of its four first letters + y
for non-final positions, and a five letter combining
form which is the gismu itself for final position.
The short rafsi are made of three letters of the gismu,
but not all gismu have short rafsi, some have
more than one (up to three) and which three letters
conform it is not decided completely algorithmically,
there's only some restrictions as to which ones they
can be.

co'o mi'e xorxes