On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 5:11 PM, selpa'i
<seladwa@gmx.de> wrote:
Am 14.09.2012 22:52, schrieb Michael Turniansky:
Well, of course, I haven't seen the debate yet (still being more than 3 weeks behind on email) and therefore don't know if you've already addressed the following question,
It happened long ago, I can't remember when exactly, but it's been almost a year, but at least half a year.
but EVEN IF I accept arguendo your statement that "ua" is a CV (although I don't), then you must ALSO assert that "iu" is a CV.
Yes, iu is CV (bearing though that this C is not the same type of C that is used to create brivla clusters under the current rules. changing this would in theory be possible however, which would cause things like bioka to be CCVCV brivla. not currently the case, however.)
So how do you distinguish between "iu isai..." and "i ui sai..." if all the person put down (as here) was "iuisai..."?
The problem here is because it is technically accepted to elide denpa bu when a space is present, people aren't sure when denpa bu is actually necessary and when it isn't. It also makes people confused about what the point of the letter is. I encourage to always include all denpa bu that are necessary and to elide all that can be elided if one so wishes.
If you write down "iu isai" then that becomes {iu .i sai}. If you write it down without spaces, which is the more interesting case and more closely resembles the actual speechstream, then you have to make sure the automatic initial denpa bu that people are using does what you want it to do. {iuisai} would become {.i ui sai} if you allow denpa bu to be elided. If not, it would be ungrammatical (because after iu, the next i is not a lojban word and it fails to parse).
What are you talking about? The next i IS a lojbanic word, and parses fine (If you are asserting that a sentence may not be simply an attitudinal, that's not true. Or perhaps you are asserting that sai may not stand alone, which is also untrue). And I never suggested he couldn't elide the denpa bu. I explicitly said:
.i uisai" or ".i.uisai"
I don't use usually use denpa bu except before "i" or in educational settings.
(And let's not forget that plenty of combinations like "iau" are valid in names and fu'ivla and are different than "i au and ia u" The pauses need to be present to distinguish, or there has to be an unambiguous rule of decomposition, which I don't believe there can be, but I will wait further commenting upon my reading of what youve already written onthe topic.
There is indeed such a rule of decomposition and only because it exists can I in good conscience preach this. You just need to be aware that the semi-vowels are not vowels, they are [w] and [j] in IPA respectively. If you consider speechstreams, then those are distinct from the actual Lojban vowels (V). "iua" is only possible in cmevla and zi'evla. A cmavo can't have three VVV in a row, so the cmavo clusters always decompose unambiguously. If I didn't answer all your questions, please feel free to through more questions or tests at me.
Yes, I have no misunderstanding about [w] and [j]. But they are a natural artifact of the pronouncing of two vowels close together. For example, if you (as some do, but I don't) say that the name le jegvo cevni is la'o jegvo iaue jegvo, you can pronounce it as a single vocalic "flow" from one to the other, and they naturally cause a [w] and [j] (and an [aʊ̯]) to appear (Go ahead, I'll wait (*hums*)) That's all the morphologic rule means, and why it's necessary to separate out the vowel pairs that should NOT be pronounced as diphthongs or semivowels+vowel. Nonetheless, I will agree that in speech, it's not necessary to pause between the words, because the pronunciation as a semivowel and not a vowel will naturally cause the break, but in print (which is what we were addressing here, in case you've forgotten), it IS, because otherwise the decomposition is ambiguous.
--gejyspa