On 31 Mar 2010, at 15:05, Jorge Llambías wrote:
> I suspect John's ',' was a typo for '.'.
Ah.
> The occurence of the period is the one that is fully predictable, the occurrence of the comma is fully unpredictable, and has no phonemic significance (indeed it is not even clear why the comma is part of the alphabet at all, since it doesn't represent any phoneme). Also, it is the period, not the comma that serves "to remind people to take a breath (or break)", the comma serves to remind NOT to take a breath or break, even though there is a syllable boundary.
>
> "la Meri An" doesn't work, because "meri" is the cmavo string "me ri",
> not a cmevla.
Ah, yes, wouldn't it have to be "la Meris An"?
> I would suggest "la merián" or "la Merián", or if three syllables is a
> must, then "la meriián" or "la Meriián".
It's trisyllabic certainly. I guess "la Meri,Án" or "la Meriián" are it.
>>> But there are some places where a pause is not so obvious, mainly IIRC at the ends of names. To be sure, if the name is capitalized, then this is predictable as well, even if the name is a purely Lojban phrase. In short, a dotless text would be quite adequate and much nicer looking.
>
> The pause after cmevla is fully predictable, as they are the only words that end in a consonant.
Then the dot is pretty much redundant, if it's so predictable?
> Names that do not use cmevla do not require a pause.
>
> As I said, using "la" for:
>
> ...when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her...
>
> is at the very least semantically odd. (Syntactically, it is fine.)
Yes, you were rigth about that one, as I pointed out the French do the same.