Subject: RE: [lojban] Why is there so much irregularity in cmavo/gismu?

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 06:56:52 -0500

>It's one thing for English to have its quirks, but one competing to
>replace it should be as regular as possible. Here's an obvious
>example, with modals.

>mukti=mu'i
>mupli=mu'u

>Why the irregularity? Maybe because someone decided to make a Hindi
>word thousands of years ago that didn't jive with a Chinese one made
>even earlier.

Do you propose to make mu'i mean both, and thus be ambiguous?

>As far as I'm concerned, all the cmavo, gismu, and rafsi should be
>redone so they are much more systematic. For true cultural
>nutrality, make them more or less random within a systematic
>framework.

The gismu are fine. It's the rafsi that need work. And while we're at it,
can we get rid of selma'o? They are very misleading. the place structure of
selma'o is x2 is the grammatical class containing particle x1 - meaning
that by calling them both UI we put xu and .ui in the same grammar class.
they play extremely different roles. .ui expresses a feeling. xu makes
questions. Sounds the same to me!

--la kreig.daniyl.

'segu le balvi temci gi mi'o renvi lo purci
.i ga le fonxa janbe gi du mi'
-la djimis.BYFet

xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74