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Re: [lojban] idea: selma'o fu'ivla
Warning: Long text ahead. This e-mail in a nutshell:
- I agree to rename “selma'o fu'ivla” to “selma'o zi'evla”.
- I give comments on possible lojban definitions for selma'o zi'evla
- I propose a new naming scheme for those selma'o names that start with
a vowel.
At Wed, 24 Jul 2013 on 23:45:37 -0400,
Jacob Errington <nictytan@gmail.com> wrote:
> What's important when making up definitions is not what they are in
> English, but rather what they are in *Lojban*.
Good point!
> (Also, the more correct term in this case
> is {zi'evla}. It doesn't make sense to call {cmavr<whatever>}, a
> fu'ivla as it isn't a loanword by any stretch.)
Correct. I have updated the wikipage and moved it to
<http://mw.lojban.org/index.php/selma%27o_zi%27evla>.
> I'd probably define these in Lojban with {x1 se cmavo zo bai .e
> zo ...} and list all the elements + {fo lo lojbo}. The concise
> definition would be be {x1 se cmavo zo bai ra'u fo lo lojbo}.
Almost okay, I would change “lojbo” to something which explicitly
refers to the language. Like “lo banjubu'o”, “lo jbobau” or “la
lojban.”.
I am not sure, but I think that “mu'a” instead of “ra'u” would be more
logically here. With “ra'u”, it could be interpreted that “bai” is
somehow more important than the other BAI cmavo. But in fact it’s just
a name-giver, an example. The name-giving cmavo look to me as if they
were randomly chosen and not because they are somehow more important
than the other ones.
Here is my example short definition for BAI:
“$x_1$ se cmavo zo bai mu'a fo lo banjubu'o”
Additionally, since the “official” selma'o name is so important, we
should include it in the “notes” field:
Notes: “la'o sy WhATEVER sy cu drata cmene $x_1$” where “WhATEVER” is of
course the “official” selma'o name.
I chose the “sy” delimeter for “selma'o”. Also “sy”
can’t be a selma'o name, because “sy” is already in BY. So this
template should work for all selma'o imaginable and therefore is usable
for automation.
> Customarily, when the zi'evla-head begins with a vowel, we prefix
> [x], not [lr], e.g. the fu'ivla for "anime" {skinrxanime}..
I come back to it.
> > Here’s the list of irregegular selma'o fu'ivla produced with above
> > rules:
> > A cmavlra
> zo cmavrxa .e'u
A newbie may be tempted to believe that this is the selma'o “XA”. ;-)
I come back to it.
> > UI cmavlrui
> the [u] in {ui} is a consonant, so {cmavrui} is fine.
But it isn’t a stage-3 zi'evla and I want to start with stage-3 zi'evla
for all selma'o. It’s just pure luck that “cmavrui” is at
least morphologically correct, it’s a stage-4 zi'evla. You don’t have
this luck all the time. “cmavri” (for selma'o I), for example, would be
a lujvo. And although the “u” in “ui” is spoken like a consonant, in
morphology, that “u” is still considered a vowel IIRC.
> > I cmavlri
> Sadly, adding [x] doesn't work here as it clashes with selma'o XI.
> Your proposal for the l-hyphen works, but in my opinion, it should be
> limited as much as possible to the case where it is necessary, i.e.
> between r and n.
And the entire idea of using “x” breaks down. Additionally, “cmavrxa”
could be interpreted “selma'o XA”. Yeah, of course one can _know_ that
this is _not_ the case here since I’d create a clear definition. But
it may cause some confusion.
I had some reasons to pick the hyphen letters. I just didn’t explain
them yet. Now the time has come.
The main reason is to provide a ruleset
contains “Y” → use brivla
starts with other vowel (no Y) → “lr” “hyphen” + selma'o
starts with “R” → “n” hyphen + selma'o
starts with other consonant → “r” hyphen + selma'o
The choices for the consonants were no-brainers since the CLL gives a
good default here.
I did pick “lr” because I wanted it to be different from “r” and “n”.
See the difference between “cmavrxa” and “cmavlra”:
“cmavrxa” breaks down into “cmav”, “r” and “xa” (selma'o XA?)
“cmavlra” breaks down into “cmav”, “l”, “r” and “a” (clearly selma'o A).
The “r” is neccessary here because “cmavla” would be a lujvo.
If you see a “n” or “r” hyphen, then what follows behind it is either
the selma'o name in lower-case or a brivla which descibes the selma'o.
It should always be possible to reconstruct the “official” selma'o name
if in the first case.
If you look at “cmavrbai” and “cmavrdepsna”, you can extract “bai” and
“depsna”, respectively. “bai” is clearly a cmavo, write it in
upper-case and you have the “official” selma'o name “BAI”. “depsna” is
clearly a lujvo, so it can’t refer to the selma'o “DEPSNA” (doesn’t
exist anyways). So you know that “cmavrdepsna” refers the the selma'o
which has something to do with “depsna”. You simply have to know that
it is “I” in this case. Luckily, there are just two border cases so
far.
So far, so good. But now I noticed that the coice “l” + “r” was actually
a bad one. “cmavlra”, “cmavlri” and “cmavlrui” aren’t stage-3 zi'evla,
they are stage-4. Whoops.
I have changed my mind and suggest this instead:
If the selma'o starts with a vowel, use the “r” hyphen and append “xr”
to it and after that the lower-cased selma'o name. So:
“cmavrxrui” → “cmav” + “r” + “xr” + “ui” → clearly selma'o UI
“cmavrxri” → “cmav” + “r” + “xr” + “i” → clearly the selma'o I
“cmavrxra” → “cmav” + “r” + “xr” + “a” → clearly the selma'o A
You can't break “cmavrxrui” down into “cmav” + “r” + “xrui” and
come to the conclusion that it stands for the selma'o XRUI. Because no
cmavo is allowed to start with two consonants.
Compare this to
“cmavrxui” → Breaks this down into “cmav” + “r” + “xui”? Or to “cmav” +
“r” + “x” + “ui”? It could be interpreded as UI or as XUI. XUI may be an
experimental selma'o invented at some day in the future, so there’s a
potential collision.
“cmavrxi” → already taken by XI. This problem is obvious.
“cmavrxa” → no collision, but slightly misleading, one may be
tempted think of the non-existant selma'o “XA” here.
So I suggest these new slightly changed building rules for selma'o
zie'vla:
selma'o name contains “Y” → use brivla
starts with other vowel → “r” hyphen + “xr” + selma'o
starts with “R” → “n” hyphen + selma'o
starts with other consonant → “r” hyphen + selma'o
Now the “rxr” idea is much better than the “lr” idea. It shares the
spirit of the “x” convention (thanks for pointing it out) because it’s
very similar to it—it's basicly just the “x” convention with an “r”
appended.
I wait for comments before I apply these changes to the wiki.
--
Wuzzy
XMPP: Wuzzy2@jabber.ccc.de
E-Mail: wuzzy2@mail.ru
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