Subject: Re: Mark on wiki on lerfu

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 13:55:41 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., "And Rosta" <a.rosta@n...> wrote:
> Mark writes
(http://nuzban.wiw.org/wiki/index.php?Type%204%20fu%27ivla):
> 
> "we can use any string of lerfu as a ko'a-style sumti variable
(which makes me
> think that there's practically no reason ever to use the ko'a series
at all)"
> -- can you explain?

Um, I can try.

As I understand it, any old lerfu-string in a sentence can be used as
a sumti (yes, it's also a mex, usable with li, and so forth. I mean
just a bare string of lerfu as a sumti). It's considered a "variable"
pro-sumti, assignable with goi (well, you can assign any sumti with
goi, but I mean it's semantically and pragmatically sensible in
general with lerfu-strings). If unassigned, they default to the most
recent sumti with the appropriate initial letter(s), if any, or so
they tell me. So I can say "le ctuca .e le vecnu cu prami le speni be
cy." for "the teacher and the merchant [separately] love the spouse of
the teacher," relying on the default that "cy." goes back to "ctuca." 
Or, more conservatively, you can say "le ctuca goi cy. .e le vecnu..."
with the same result, using cy. exactly like ko'a (with the slight
difference that an unassigned ko'a is meaningless, while an unassigned
lerfu-string will at least TRY to find a meaning, possibly the one you
wanted). So basically, a lerfu-string can do anything a ko'a can do,
and then some. The two and-then-somes are: (a) as mentioned, if it's
unassigned, it will try to snag a nearby meaning, and if done
properly, this is not so bad and pretty reliable (see below). (b)
lerfu-strings have far more potential for mnemonic power than ko'a. 
It's a lot easier to keep track of pronouns for la bab., la djan., la
.alis., and la fred. as by., dy., .abu, and fy. than as ko'a, ko'e,
ko'i, and ko'o (has ANYONE ever used ko'o? I had to look that one up
to double-check that it really was still in the series).

I like using these, though I don't trust the implicit assignments
completely (but I do use them, just not in all cases). The
mnemonicity is a real brain-saver. I don't like the implicit
assignment with descriptors, though, for some reason. Somehow it
doesn't seem that reliable. Maybe it's because there's nothing about
lo ctuca that particularly would associate her with cy; I might just
as easily have described her as lo ninmu and use ny. This is not a
valid argument I'm making, just something that sort of affects my
thinking (after all, there are endlessly many names for everyone). 
Also, with all the brivla that get used in a sentence, I could easily
forget that there was another intervening cy-sumti that would thus get
misassigned. But with names I have no such qualms, especially if I
have a two-word name and can use two initials. This saves me the
assignment step, and works quite well. So in
http://www.kli.org/kli/langs/KLIlojban.html I refer to "la mark.
okrand." and then in the next sentence use "my.obu." Perhaps that's
counting on a little too much, that the reader should know I'm taking
initials (as opposed to, say, the first two letters in the name), I
don't know. I think it works. Or recently I was writing something
about the Phillip Morris company, referring to it as "la filip moris"
and then as "fy.my." (or "fymy.") On the other hand, when I
introduced the KLI as "la klingon. zei bangu ckule", I assigned it
with "goi kybycy." and used that throughout (I didn't trust the
assignment to a tanru/lujvo/zei-thingy of indeterminate initials). 
Multi-letter strings are even less prone to confusion than single
letters, so I think they work quite well. I used "xy." for the KLI's
journal HolQeD, but assigned it with goi, since I used la'o quotes and
can't count on people to know the pronunciation.

(As an aside, here's a bizarre consequence... since cmene+bu is
syntactically a lerfu, you could use ".mark.bu" as a sumti, leaving it
up to the listener to somehow work out who it was... which isn't all
that much worse than saying "la mark." and hoping they know. The best
guess for "mark.bu" is probably somebody named Mar[ck], right? (And no
cracks about how "mark.bu" is some "letter Mark." That's true, when
*mentioned*, but not when used this way. "li mark.bu" is a
mathematical expression, like using "area" as a variable. To get
"letter-mark" you'd need a letter context, not a sumti context. Just
like I can use "by." for la bab., I can use "mark.bu" for la
markonilentironafilos.))

The only advantage ko'a-series does still have (aside from history) is
the fact that three of the fo'a series (fo'a, fo'e, fo'i) have rafsi
and can thus make lujvo... but has anyone really done this? So that's
why I say I think the ko'a-series doesn't have much utility. Anything
they can do, lerfu-strings can, and more, and easier.

Nick just sent me (at long last) comments on the KLI info page in
Lojban, so I'll probably be making some edits in it soon. Look at it
anyway; I'm pretty proud of it, mistakes and all.

And, should this rant go on the Wiki?

~mark