Subject: Re: [lojban] bacrynandu drata

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 21:20:22 -0400

At 05:39 PM 06/28/2000 -0700, michael helsem wrote:
> >From: Taral <[email-masked]>
> li'o
> > > ko tcidu le mupli pe li bipi'epa zi'e petu'i le somoi
> > > cuktypau (See example 8.1 in the 9th chapter of the Book.)
> >
> >Very good, but shouldn't that be "ckupau"?
>
>vlina (Either/or.)

To clarify, all combinations of rafsi for the same tanru, when properly 
formed and connected, represent the same word with identical meaning. Thus 
ckupau = cuktypau = cuktypagbu = ckupagbu. Usually the shortest form is 
the preferred form, but oftentimes the fully expanded form will be seen, 
especially when beginners are talking or listening, because it requires no 
knowledge of the short rafsi. A few other mixed forms are common, such as 
using expanded forms except for short "mau" (more) in the final position 
for a comparative because most people know it (always used even if it may 
sometimes be possible to get a shorter word using a different rafsi for zmadu).

A major thing we wanted to avoid was having the same tanru being used to 
make several different words having different meanings. JCB and TLI took 
the approach that the dictionary-makers would choose one correct form to be 
used by all; I chose instead to say that all forms were valid and 
synonymous. Longer forms being equivalent later turned out to have an 
advantage,when we became concerned about lack of redundancy in the lujvo 
space: while a high percentage of words of form CVVCCV (for example among 
lujvo forms) are possibly legitimate Lojban words, mishearing a word as 
something else meaningful is way too easy. But with the ability to use 
expanded forms, we have a built in equivalent of the alfa/bravo/charlie 
system which expands English in a noisy environment to prevent errors.

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