Re: [lojban] Re: I wanted to share this with you (writing thingy!).

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 11:56 PM, Lindar <lindarthebard@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> From the point of view of the grammar, there is no difference at all
>> between them. The comma never makes a phonemic difference. If you use
>> it, it's just for decorative purposes. It's unfortunate that it was
>> ever even added to the Lojban alphabet.
>
> Isn't this completely against what the CLL says?

CLL says: "Commas are never required: no two Lojban words differ
solely because of the presence or placement of a comma." (Ch. 3 Sect.
3)

> I thought triphthongs were illegal, and essentially that says they -
> are- legal.

No, two vowels written together do not necessarily form a diphthong
(i.e. one syllable), and three vowels written together do not
necessarily form a thriphthong (i.e. one syllable).

"aio" is two syllables no matter how you split them, just like "aro"
is two syllables. You can write the decorative comma as "ar,o" or as
"a,ro", but it doesn't make any differrence to the morphology.

As for thriphthongs being "illegal", CLL contains the name
".i,iai,ii,iai,ion." as an example, using the triphthong "iai" twice,
but it may very well say somewhere else that triphthongs are illegal.
The morphology section in CLL is not 100% consistent.

> While it claims to not make a difference, I do hear/say one
> between .A,ionys. and .AI,onys.

That you can make and hear a difference doesn't mean the difference is
relevant. As a Spanish speaker I can pronounce "r" as an alveolar tap
or a trill and hear the difference, but it won't make any difference
to Lojban. Whichever one I use or hear, it's the same word in Lojban.

"Being the same word" is relevant in very few contexts anyway. You can
use "a,ionys" as the opening delimiter in a ZOI quote, and "ai,onys"
as the closing delimiter, and it will work, because it's the same
word, just as if I use "ra" with a tap as the opening delimiter and
"ra" with a trill as the closing delimiter.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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