Subject: Re: [lojban] fu'ivla tarmi preti

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 19:12:26 -0500

At 12:33 PM 12/14/02 -0500, Pierre Abbat wrote:
>According to the Book (or at least the downloadable version), a brivla may
>not contain a cluster of more than three consonants, and the second pair in a
>cluster must be an initial consonant pair. These rules are violated by the
>undefined fu'ivla {bongnanba} and by many type-3 fu'ivla such as
>{matcrflokati} and {cidjrspageti}. The rule as I understand it is that there
>may not be more than three consonants other than 'r', 'l', 'n', and 'm' ina
>row. The rule as implemented in vlatai is that there may not be more than
>three non-vocalic consonants in a row, where 'r', 'n', 'l', or 'm' is a
>vocalic consonant iff it is between two consonants. Thus {damskrima}, which I
>deem valid, is rejected by vlatai, while it accepts {dapmskrima} and
>{dasktrsktima}. What is the correct rule?

Nora is of the opinion (which I would probably agree with if I thought 
about it) that Cowan (and I before him) were not considering fu'ivla when 
writing most of the morphology rules, because then as now, fu'ivla were 
considered unimportant fill-ins that did not need careful definition (and 
indeed such definition was probably impossible). Actually, I think we 
thought of fu'ivla as being closer to names in terms of rules than brivla.

If you look in the section on fu'ivla (pardon the codes, since this came 
from the master copy with indexing codes, etc.

><cx "fu'ivla, construction of"><cx "fu'ivla, form of">The form of a 
>fu'ivla reliably distinguishes it from both the gismu and the cmavo. Like 
>cultural gismu, fu'ivla are generally based on a word from a single 
>non-Lojban language. The word is borrowed(actually copied, hence the 
>Lojban tanru fukpi valsi) from the other language and Lojbanized the 
>phonemes are converted to their closest Lojban equivalent and 
>modifications are made as necessary to make the word a legitimate Lojban 
>fu'ivla-form word. All fu'ivla:
>
><p>

****************************************
><cx "fu'ivla, rules for formation of"><cx "fu'ivla, initial consonant 
>cluster in"><dl compact><dt>1) <dd>must contain a consonant cluster 
>in the first five letters of the word; if this consonant cluster is at the 
>beginning, it must either be a permissible initial consonant pair, or a 
>longer cluster such that each pair of adjacent consonants in the cluster 
>is a permissible initial consonant pair: spraileis acceptable, but not 
>ktraileor trkaile;
*****************************************

><p><dt>2) <dd>must end in one or more vowels;
>
></dl><cx "slinku'i test, definition"><dl compact><dt>3) <dd>must not 
>be gismu or lujvo, or any combination of cmavo, gismu, and lujvo; 
>furthermore, a fu'ivla with a CV cmavo joined to the front of it must not 
>have the form of a lujvo (the so-called slinku'i test, not discussed 
>further in this book);
>
></dl><ex "syllabic pronunciations of consonants, in fu'ivla"><cx "y, 
>prohibition from fu'ivla"><dl compact><dt>4) <dd>cannot contain y, 
>although they may contain syllabic pronunciations of Lojban consonants;
>
></dl><cx "fu'ivla, stress in"><dl compact><dt>5) <dd>like other 
>brivla, are stressed on the penultimate syllable.

**************************************************
></dl><cx "fu'ivla, consonant clusters in">Note that consonant triples or 
>larger clusters that are not at the beginning of a fu'ivla can be quite 
>flexible, as long as all consonant pairs are permissible. There is no need 
>to restrict fu'ivla clusters to permissible initial pairs except at the 
>beginning.
****************************************************

><p>
>
><cx "fu'ivla, categorized contrasted with uncategorized in ease of 
>construction"><cx "borrowings, Stage 3 contrasted with Stage 4 in ease of 
>construction">This is a fairly liberal definition and allows quite a lot 
>of possibilities within fu'ivla space. Stage 3 fu'ivla can be made easily 
>on the fly, as lujvo can, because the procedure for forming them always 
>guarantees a word that cannot violate any of the rules. Stage 4 fu'ivla 
>require running tests that are not simple to characterize or perform, and 
>should be made only after deliberation and by someone knowledgeable about 
>all the considerations that apply.

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