Re: [lojban] Problems with gismu

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Tuesday, December 17, 2013 01:22:51 lorxus wrote:
> coi ro do
> 
> It seems like for a language that prides itself on regularity, ease of
> learning and use, and logic, Lojban sure has weird and incomplete gismu.
> 
> A given gismu can have anywhere from 1 to 5 places of varying types, some
> of them a sign of gismu bloat, and there are even a few extremely obvious
> gismu with clear counterparts are excluded. My proposals: first, make all
> gismu be exactly 3 places long, with the first an agent, the second a
> patient, and the third a beneficiary - loosely. For gismu like {blanu}, we
> might have "x1 is blue of shade x2 to observer x3", or something like that;
> {zdani} might be "x1 is a house for x2 owned by x3".

I see no problem here. Natlangs have predicates with anywhere from 1 to 4 
places (4 is the most I'm aware of), and Lojban has places that shift with 
compounding, unlike natlangs which have some sort of morphosyntactic 
alignment.

> As for blatantly missing gismu: why is there no word for salty, but words
> for sweet, bitter, sour, and spicy? (bonus points for whoever decided to
> make a lujvo for spicy meaning pain-flavored) Why don't we have gismu for
> arrive, old, discard, follow (because I assume that jersi does not have
> this sense), or appear? Why not for otter, or carrot, or dolphin, or any
> passerine bird?

The senses of "follow" and those of "jersi" intersect. The others in that list 
can be expressed as two-rafsi lujvo: tolcliva, tolci'o/tolni'o, fespu'i, 
tolcanci.

I agree that the gismu for animals and plants are badly distributed. But 
remember that gismu are for making lujvo of. I can't offhand think of much use 
for compounds of "otter", so I don't think it deserves a gismu. A few for 
passerines and Perciformes and Asteraceae, yes. And we can make fu'ivla such 
as "gejrdauko" or "morkovi".

I think there should be a word for "change" with the place structure "x1 
changes from x2 to x3". A caterpillar becomes a butterfly, but is still the 
same individual.

Pierre
-- 
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

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