RE: [lojban] selma'o

[Jay Kominek <jay.kominek@colorado.edu>]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Craig wrote:

>   If about half of us agree not to even read the parts of the Book that
> mention selma'o, and half of us memorize our selma'o, then can't we watch
> the differences and get a very simple Sapir-Whorf test? I have some other
> test ideas, but no way to do them without getting better at lojban. first.

(Disclaimer: I only took one semester of Psycholinguistics.)

If you learn it fluently, then your mind will learn the selma'o whether or
not you know the names, since the selma'o control the grammar of the
language. You have no need for conscious knowledge of the fact that zu'o
is of selma'o NU, but to be able to speak fluently, the language portions
of your brain have to figure that fact out. (Of course, your brain won't
call it a selma'o, or NU, but it doesn't have to, just as long as it is
consistent.)

If you can learn Lojban correctly without learning the cmavo->selma'o
mapping, more power to you. You can't get rid of them, though, because
they're used to describe the language. (Look at the EBNF grammar or
something.)

- Jay Kominek <jay.kominek@colorado.edu>