From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Aug 31 22:08:26 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_0_1); 1 Sep 2002 05:08:26 -0000 Received: (qmail 53407 invoked from network); 1 Sep 2002 05:08:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m14.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 1 Sep 2002 05:08:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao03.cox.net) (68.1.17.242) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 1 Sep 2002 05:08:26 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20020901050825.CSFQ16428.lakemtao03.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Sun, 1 Sep 2002 01:08:25 -0400 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020901005918.032f7470@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 01:08:01 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [lojban] dictionary - which words? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 09:46 PM 8/31/02 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote: >la greg cusku di'e > >The problem, however, is that semau is one lexeme composed of two words, > >and > >we might want to look up that lexeme. If I know se and mau, but I do not > >know zmadu, then knowing that semau is se+mau does not tell me what it > >*means*. > >But you can't know mau and not know all the places of zmadu. >You need not know that mau comes from zmadu, but the definition >of mau has to include all the places of zmadu. ka'a does not >just tag any goer. It tags a goer that has a destination, an >origin, a route and a means of going. Very heavy baggage, but >that's Lojban. So for you the definition of mau includes all the possible definitions of X + mau and for mau + Y for arbitrary X or Y. Most people would think that the definition of mau is that of mau by itself; that the meaning changes in a phrase means that they should be told to look up the phrase. "mau" by itself does NOT access all the places of "zmadu". If we are going to list the meaning of "se mau" under "mau", why aren't we listing it under "se". The 2nd place of zmadu is no more a part of the definition of mau than it is part of the definition of "se". (I'm being a devil's advocate here - in some ways you are correct, but that would be a lot of manual work or some pretty hairy software to figure out exactly what headword to list which word combinations under, and then combine the text in some logical and well-formatted manner.) lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org