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Re: [lojban] word proposal
At 02:21 AM 11/14/01 +0000, thinkit8@lycos.com wrote:
ok, i'll explain my example better here. the gismu were
not "designed" at all. they were more or less randomly made, and
rafsi more or less randomly attached.
On the contrary, they were designed according to a computer
algorithm. However, the ability to make distinct rafsi and/or modals was
not a factor in that algorithm, in part because the gismu were made long
before the rafsi or modals.
because of this, we got a lot
of irregularities. the book specifically mentions that many modals
are irregular. a simple example: marji is ma'e because manri took
ma'i. why? simply because marji and manri are both one of the few
chosen modals, yet both have the same CV'V pattern. modals are one
case where it's very clear that the cmavo directly corresponds to the
gismu, so there really should be a regularity there.
When the modals were first created, they were only loosely tied to the
gismu that they were keyed from. The strict place structure concord that
now exists came a few years later. At the time of creation, however, we
had certain meanings in mind, and used the gismu as memory hooks, such that
similarity was sufficient.
it's more or
less a form of conjugation, which natural languages are mocked
endlessly for their irregularity in.
Of course modals are completely optional in Lojban. You need never use
them. Use subordinate sentences, or fi'o.
tenses are another.
attitudinals are a bit unique, and may or may not need to correspond
to gismu (although i'd rather have them all regular or all random
rather than the irregular corresponding words in the refrgram). the
situation is much worse with rafsi.
It's all a matter of priority. Having identified 3 groups of cmavo that
you wish were regular, coupled with the other cmavo that ARE regular (the
digits 1-9, se/te/ve, ti/ta/tu, etc) you quickly find that there isn't
enough cmavo space to have regularity for everything.
We also found out that certain kinds of regularity are not ideal -se/te/ve
for example is a set that I would change if I were redoing the language
because they sound too much alike - we did make them distinct in rafsi, but
that distinction of course is an "irregularity" to you.
craig, you say you like the gismu. but the fact is you have to
change the gismu to redo the rafsi. for example, you could
standardize on two letter cmavo adding "n" to make rafsi,
You are then limited to around 100 cmavo.
and adjust
gismu accordingly so you don't have conflicts (as gismu will have
their own way of forming rafsi). and you can organize the gismu
according to frequency of use,
When you design a language, you have no idea what the frequency of use of
the words will be. We did the initial rafsi assignments in part based on
usage of corresponding words in making lujvo for TLI Loglan, but we knew
that was not a particularly accurate basis for frequencies. We tried to
redo the rafsi in 1993 based on the limited frequency that had been seen,
but the community decided that it wanted all the most familiar rafsi to be
held "sacred" and unchanged, and as a result relatively fewer changes were
made.
the real point is not the specifics. it's that, if you're trying to
change things to be better, do it completely. of course other
languages have irregularities. but lojban is supposed to be better,
right?
I assume by "better" you mean "xagmau". In which case Lojban shows that
you are missing 3 key place values:
x1 is better than ?x2 for ?x3 by standard ?x4
Actually Lojban was NOT designed to be "better" for any consistent set of
x2, x3, and x4.
A lot of x3s THINK it is better than natlangs for them, and sometimes other
conlangs, based on varying standards.
lojbab
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org