Re: [lojban] Re: camxes's reaction to some fu'ivla

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> On Monday 25 January 2010 08:46:54 Jorge Llambías wrote:
>
>> (1) Syllable onsets:
>>
>> (a) Is the empty onset allowed or not? This affects vowel clusters
>> such as "oa", "aa", etc. in fu'ivla, which require an empty onset for
>> the second vowel.
>
> I think it should be. The example "bangrkorea" is in the refgram.

Yes, though John Cowan has said he regrets having included it, so we
could eventually consider it an erratum.

The argument against such clusters is the very existence of the
apostrophe in Lojban: Loglan allowed those clusters, Lojban introduced
the apostrophe for the sole purpose of breaking up those clusters, and
then Lojban reintroduces those clusters again, such as "ea" to compete
against "e'a" and "eia"? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

>> (b) Are Ci/Cu onsets permitted in fu'ivla? Are CCi/CCu onsets
>> permitted? Are CCCi/CCCu onsets permitted? Are 'i/'u onsets permitted?

Some examples from jbovlaste:

ab,nie,na
sar,gue,ia
per,vu,'ui
krio,fla

I don't find any example with CCCi/CCCu but I only made a superficial check.
camxes should accept the first two, but not the last two.


>> (c) Can i/u be onsets if the nucleus is a diphthong? (a.k.a. are
>> triphthongs allowed?)
>
> There's one occurrence of a triphthong in the refgram, but no list of valid
> triphthongs.

The list in any case is limited to the eight: iai, iau, iei, ioi, uai,
uau, uei, uoi.
It wouldn't make sense to allow some but not all of them, or to allow
any more than those, given the list of diphthongs already allowed. For
example allowing "iai" but not "iau" would not make sense, or allowing
"ieu" as a triphthong given that "eu" is not allowed as a diphthong
would not make sense.

>> (2) Syllable codas:  how many consonants are allowed in a syllable
>> coda? If more than one, are there any special restrictions?
>
> I think it should be two, with the restriction that if there are two, the
> first has to be in the set {r,n,l,m}. My made-up example is "tarksako"; the
> one in the Book is "bongnanba". If "tarksako" is disallowed, I could go
> with "traksako" or "tarsako" (or "cinfydenspa").
>
> I tried various versions of these and could not figure out what rule camxes is
> using. It allows "tarkmako" but not "tarksako", even though both "ks"
> and "km" are allowed medially but not initially. Similarly "bongnanba" but
> not "bongbanba".

That's odd indeed. It should disallow all of them. It appears as if it
was allowing tar,km,a,ko and bon,gn,an,ba but I don't see why. A
consonantal syllable should not be able to be followed by a syllable
without an onset.

Maybe the implementation of camxes you are using is not based on the
current morphology as it appears in
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/BPFK+Section:+PEG+Morphology+Algorithm
(or maybe I'm missing something there.)

>> (3) Syllable nuclei: (I don't think there are any issues here.)
>>
>> (4) cmevla: Are the constraints for cmevla less strict than for
>> fu'ivla (the ones mentioned above in particular.)
>
> I think that a cmevla should be allowed to end with any consonant cluster that
> is permitted medially in a brivla.

If weird codas are allowed for the last syllable, shouldn't they be
allowed for any syllable, rather than just the last one?


>> Anything else?
>
> damskrima: vlatai rejects this, both camxes and valfendi allow it.

Right, three valid syllables: dam,skri,ma

> Max length of consonant clusters. It is possible to make an infinitely long
> string of consonants, all pairs of which are initial, such as "ststst...".

camxes does not allow the combination of ts/tc/dz/dj with other
consonants in an onset. The only consonant-cluster onsets that it
accepts (besides those four) must fall within the pattern:

   (s,c,z,j) (p,t,k,f,x,b,d,g,v,m,n) (r,l)

so the maximum length for an onset is three consonants.

> What should be counted as a cmavo for purposes of falling off the head of a
> brivla? I consider it to be any sequence consisting of at least one vowel,
> possibly with apostrophes between vowels, and possibly preceded by a
> consonant. Thus "tioprano" breaks up, even though there is no actual
> cmavo "tio".

camxes does the same thing, it considers "tio" a cmavo form even
though there are no actual such cmavo. A good argument could be made
against considering these as valid cmavo forms though, since otherwise
they would seem to be preferrable over the longer CVhV forms. (That is
in fact the reason camxes does not consider "tio" a valid rafsi form.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes