Subject: [lojban] Re: xoi'a

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 01:58:55 +0100

Hope sez:
> Rosta, care to elaborate? I agree with the ZAhO point.

Xod, I don't mind being referred to as la rosta, but doi rosta
transports me back to the macho homophobic boorish days of
highschool...

> >From the Wiki:
> 
> * xoi'a? [PU]: increasing linearly over time
> * la papri xoi'a pelxu: The page is yellowing.
> 
> * xoi'e? [PU]: exponential increasing
> * do xoi'e lojbo certu: You're learning Lojban at an exponential
> rate.
> 
> * Semantically, xoi'a/xoi'e belong in ZAhO, since they deal with
> change in truth over time. For example, co'a is change from categorically
> false to categorically true. xoi'a/xoi'e deal with rates of increase in
> degree of truth. However, there are several possible rates of increase,
> and there is also the possibility of decrease, so I think this domain of
> meaning requires some more comprehensive proposal than simply these two
> cmavo. --And

I haven't had time to mull it over enough to come up with a positive
proposal, but we can see change as like movement somewhere along the
scale ranging from infinitely true to infinitely false. The change
can be either from one defined position to another, or change within
a region of the scale in one or the other direction. The latter sort
of change can be at a constant rate, or an accelerating rate or a
decelerating rate. xoi'a/xoi'e pick out change within the True part
of the scale ({xoi'V na ku} and {xoi'V ja'a xi pi PA ku} would give
change within other parts of the scale) that is constant or accelerating.

The complexity of all this militates against doing it by experimental
cmavo and in favour of doing it by lujvo, but otoh just as
{jitfa tu'o du'u} is irksomely cumbersome compared to {na}, so
{<lujvo> tu'o du'u} might be felt to be too cumbersome for these
meanings.

(I do wish {tu'o du'u} could be reduced to one syllable. It'd be the
ultimate Zipfean saving. Are there any monosyllables still going
spare?)

--And.