Subject: RE: [lojban] Re: word for "www" (was: Archive location.)

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 13:52:24 -0400

At 01:13 PM 9/13/02 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
> > > But things like selbroda = se broda are an
> > > abomination. If I see "se broda" if have to consult the lexical
> > > entry for "broda" to see what the phrase means, but if I see
> > > "selbroda" I have to consult the lexical entry for "selbroda"
> > > -- the very fact of using the lujvo implies that the meaning
> > > is NOT "se broda".
> >
> > Since there is only one possible interpretation for 'se broda', I
> > think that it's clear that 'selbroda' has the same meaning.
>
>Certainly not. It's reasonable to suppose that if x is selbroda
>then x is se broda (though the grammar of Lojban does not
>guarantee that), but it is certainly not reasonable to suppose that
>if x is se broda then x is selbroda.

In the case of the simple conversions, I think that will be true. However, 
such lujvo will tend to be used only when a) broda has a short rafsi in 
final position, b) selbroda (or se broda) itself is used a lot in tanru 
with the order important to making the place structure properly accessible 
(i.e. brode co selbroda vs brode co se broda, or selbroda be ko'a brode vs 
se broda be ko'a brode where the extra cmavo adds to the parsing processing 
needed to figure out what is going on) and c) where the concept is one that 
in the person's native language is a unitary and common word, and therefore 
the speaker expects to use a unitary word in Lojban.

>The job of lujvo is to
>express meanings that are not adequately expressible by the other
>words in the lexicon.

I don't think that is true. Most lujvo could be expressed by a suitably 
elaborated non-tanru with all the places filled in meticulously. That is 
presumably how we will eventually define Lojban words in Lojban. But it 
would be long-winded. I think that your statement may be valid for most 
fu'ivla, however.

>If you can express a given meaning without a lujvo, then don't use a lujvo.

Whereas I prefer lujvo. The text is often shorter, always less 
grammatically complex. Us English speakers seem to have a historical 
tendency for laziness, shortening expressions at the expense of 
complexifying the semantics of the words. I think English speakers 
speaking Lojban will tend to the same thing.

> For example, if you want to
>talk about things with one horn, then don't use {pavyseljirna},
>because that doesn't mean "thing with one horn"; it means
>"unicorn".

But we don't really know that, first of all because we don't have a 
dictionary. Descriptively, we can say that pavyseljirna has only been 
*used* for a particular concept that in English is labeled "unicorn", but 
we would be unwise to presume one-to-one correspondence between Lojban and 
English words. We don't know if at some point, someone will use 
pavyseljirna for something one-horned that does not resemble the referent 
of "unicorn".

lojbab

-- 
lojbab [email-masked]
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