Subject: Re: [lojban] morphology again

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 13:55:08 -0500

Cyril Slobin wrote:

> > It is possible to have fu'ivla like ``spa'i'' that are five letters
> > long, but they must have ``'''; no gismu contains ``'''."
> 
> But {spa'i} fails slinku'i test - cf. {bespa'i}. Is it an error or I
> have misunderstood something?

It's an error.

> > All fu'ivla: [...] 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'');
> 
> Are we talking about real lujvo made of real rafsi, or just about
> vovel-consonsnt patterns? Eg. can {becfe'e} be a fu'ivla? {becfe'e}
> looks like a lujvo, but neither {bec} nor {fe'e} rafsi exists.

Just patterns. The set of actual rafsi is not relevant.

> 3. Is {anta} a valid fu'ivla? If not, why?

Looks OK to me, but I haven't run the full test suite on it. 

> 4. The same questions for {aunta}.

The same answer.

> 5. In general, are 4-or-5-letter fu'ivla possible?

Yes, I think, especially VCCVV should be legal.

-- 

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