[lojban] Re: What do we call roots in other languages?

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 06 October 2008 16:01:21 Daniel Brockman wrote:
> I agree it makes sense to consider -nun- and -tol- derivational affixes,
> but wouldn't {cadgau} be a compound of two roots, rather than a root?

Yes it is two roots. I've been thinking about roots and {gismu}, and there 
does seem to be some sense in calling natlang roots {gismu}. Take the 
Indo-European root for instance. It consists generally of some consonants, 
none of which are the same, and a vowel "e" somewhere among the consonants. 
The e-grade, o-grade, and zero-grade forms could be said to be its rafsi. Its 
relation and argument roles are those of the simplest verb formed from the 
root, if any; if it's a noun or adjective, there is one argument role.

Lojban has a sharp distinction between the native roots, which can form 
compounds by running together their rafsi as long as the phonotactics allow, 
and borrowed roots, which have to be separated at least by "y" from adjacent 
morphemes (or "'" for those that begin with a vowel) (if the general rafsi 
fu'ivla proposals are accepted) and otherwise by {zei}. But they are both 
roots, as far as linguistic terminology goes. So what can we call something 
that's either a gismu or a fu'ivla, but is not a lujvo, and may be in a 
language other than Lojban?

Pierre


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