Subject: Re: [lojban] Arbitrary baseline violations (was: zo xruti xruti)

From: Jim Carter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 09:26:29 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 7 Aug 2002, Invent Yourself wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Aug 2002, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > Anyway, I have changed the Spanish definition to read thus:
> > xruti xru volver
> > x1 vuelve/regresa/retorna a estado/lugar anterior/original x2 desde x3;
> > [def. oficial: x1 devuelve/regresa x2 a persona/estado/lugar
> > anterior/original x3 desde x4]
>
> This is something that belongs in commentary, rather than the official
> dictionary. No gismu list should deviate in place structure: that is too
> blatant a violation, and cannot be justified as difference of translation
> opinion!

Pardon a lurker opening yap, but I agree with Xod's position. The
difference between the transitive (agentive) and non-transitive argument
format is quite major, and machine-based applications of Lojban (not to
mention human users) will not be able to deal with ambiguity between them.

In the last revision campaign before baseline, it was decided that
non-transitive formats offered the most flexibility in usage, and many
place structures were revised accordingly. It looks like this one got
missed. It should be taken up *AFTER* *BASELINE* *EXPIRATION*. Then you'll
have my "yes" vote.

The reason for preferring non-transitive formats is that it was considered
easy and natural to add transitivity by a compound with -gau (gasnu),
whereas blocking out X1 of a transitive, by using conversions or caselinks,
is less aesthetically pleasing. There is also the problem that xruti can't
properly cover "returns or reverts by itself". My gismu list suggests using
se'ixru for that. But I happen to agree that se'ixru is a lot more ad-hoc
than xrugau (with non-transitive xruti). So: wait for the baseline to
expire, then make the change.

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: [email-masked] http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)