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Re: [lojban] The important distinction between "cmene" and "cmevla"
Thanks! There are many similar problems throughout the history of Logjam. Each one cleared away is a good step. Now for {sumti} or {bridi}.
Sent from my iPad
On Sep 20, 2014, at 13:31, "'Wuzzy' via lojban" <lojban@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> Hi. This e-mail is a bit of an essay. It is about names and “name
> words”. It is a long essay because I want to make sure it gets
> understood no matter what. I write this in English because it is also
> aimed at newbies.
>
> Many of you may already have heard of the word “cmevla”. However, I
> have noticed that some of you still haven’t grasped the meaning of it
> and under what motivation some people, including me, use it. So I write
> this essay to help you understand and I think the distinction of
> “cmene” vs. “cmevla” is quite important.
>
> Let’s start with “cmene”.
> Here’s the definition of “cmene”: “x1 (quoted word(s)) is a/the
> name/title/tag of x2 to/used-by namer/name-user x3 (person)”
>
> So as I understand this definition, x1 can only fit into the predicate
> word “cmene” if the quoted word(s) are actually the name of something.
>
> “zo trolololololololololol cmene” may be false, iff there is actually
> nothing with this strange name.
>
> But most important, “cmene” is all about the name of something. It does
> *not* make an assertion about morphology.
>
> Consider these lojbanic statements:
> * “zo lojban cmene la lojban”
> * “zo gleki cmene la gleki”
> * “lu donald dak li'u cmene la donald dak
>
> These should be obviously true, but of course only if there are
> actually things called “lojban”, “gleki” or “donald dak”. For our
> purposes, I assume that this is the case. The translation is always
> something along the lines of “‘Foobar’ is the name of
> Foobar.” (carefully look at the quotes).
>
> But now consider this statement:
> * “lu donald gustav li'u cmene la donald gustav li'u”
>
> Now let’s pretend there is actually nothing in the universe called
> “donald gustav”. Then it is false. Yet “donald gustav” shares something
> with “donald dak”: The word “donald”. It is interesting because it is
> unlike words like “gismu”, “cidjrpitsa”, “gerzda”.
>
> Which leads us to the so-called “name words”, the “cmevla”.
>
> The current definition of “cmevla” is “x1 is a morphologically defined
> name word meaning x2 in language x3.”. The notes say: “In Lojban, such
> words are characterized by ending with a consonant. In Lojban, a cmevla
> may only consist of a single word, whereas a cmene can consist of one
> or multiple words, which may be cmevla. See also vlaturge'a.”
>
> Source: <http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/dict/cmevla>
>
> I think the current definition is really unlucky and probably hard to
> understand. But luckily, the notes clear it up a bit. I think I grasped
> it. But still, it should be probably reworded (=same meaning in
> different words).
>
> As I understand it, a cmevla is all about morphology. It it detached
> from the concept of “name”. In Lojban, a cmevla is a special kind of
> word which ends in a consonant. But that is just one property of a
> clevla. In fact, cmevla make their own word class (or “part-of-speech”
> if you insist), along with gismu, lujvo, fu'ivla and cmavo. The CLL
> chapter defines word classes in the morphology chapter, in the section
> “cmene” (I come to that title later). If you read the section
> carefully, it becomes clear that it talks about morphology most of the
> time. If we use the CLL definition of “cmene” in that chapter for
> “cmene”, then this is true:
>
> * “zo djim cmevla”
> * “zo djein cmevla”
> * “zo arnold cmevla”
>
> But these aren’t:
>
> * “lu donald dak li'u cmevla” (false, it is not a single word)
> * “zo gleki cmevla” (Wrong word class. The word “gleki” belongs to the
> word class “gismu”)
>
> To say “zo gleki cmene” is correct, but it just means “‘gleki’ is a
> name.”, but we wanted to say something else.
>
> In short, a cmevla is a single word which falls under the rules of the
> “cmene” chapter of the CLL. All brivla are not cmevla. Multiple words
> (like “donald dak”) are no cmevla (but “donald dak” may be a cmene).
>
> I am pretty sure that the CLL uses the word “cmene” incorrectly. To
> proof it, you have to see that the CLL distinguishes between these
> basic word classes in Lojban:
> * cmavo
> * gismu
> * lujvo
> * fu'ivla
> * cmene
>
> Now let’s look if this holds true by inserting a word of the
> corresponding word class into the x1:
>
> * zo go cmavo
> * zo mabru gismu
> * zo gerzda lujvo
> * zo cidjrpitsa fu'ivla
> * zo pitr cmene
>
> The first four ones should be acceptable without debate, the last one
> is of interest here. Let’s see what the last one means by simply
> inserting it in the definition of “cmene”:
>
> “‘pitr’ is a name of someone, given by some name-giver.”
> Or short:
> “‘pitr’ is a name.”
>
> It does not matter if this statement is actually true. But the problem
> here is that this is not what we wanted to say. The CLL clearly talked
> about a word class in the chapter called “cmene”.
>
> Let’s try it again with “cmevla”:
> * “zo pitr cmevla”
> This simply means that “pitr” is a member of a word class we call
> “cmevla”. Which *is* what we wanted to say.
>
> When the CLL talks about a “cmene” is means actually a “cmevla” in most
> of the cases. I think the reason why the CLL calls it “cmene” anyways
> is simply that the word “cmevla” didn’t exist when the CLL was written
> and the authors were not really aware of the distinction. Also, there
> is no real English translation for the concept behind “cmevla”. I could
> say “name word”, but this lexeme would be created ad hoc and is alien
> to most English-speaking people. Which may also be the reason why the
> wording in the current definition on Jbovlaste is kinda tricky at the
> moment. I would be very glad if someone could suggest a better wording
> (without changing the meaning, of course!). Someone also suggested to
> change the word class “cmene” to “cmevla” in Jbovlaste:
> <https://github.com/lojban/jbovlaste/issues/59>
>
>
> To summarize: Say “cmevla” when you are talking about a word class, but
> use “cmene” if you are talking about an actual name of something or
> someone. If you talk about names, you may say this: “zo gleki cmene
> .ije zo selpa'i cmene
> .ije zo uuZIT cmene”
>
> But if you talk about word classes, you may say this:
> “zo gleki gismu
> .ije zo selpa'i lujvo
> .ije zo uuZIT cmevla”
>
> But NOT this:
> “zo gleki gismu
> .ije zo selpa'i lujvo
> .ije zo uuZIT cmene”
> The last sentence is not false, but it is not what you wanted to say!
>
>
>
> So I hope you all understood this now. If you did, fine. If you didn’t,
> write a follow-up and tell me what you did not understand.
>
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