Subject: Re: [lojban] NickFest 2

From: "James F. Carter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 12:01:26 -0700 (PDT)

Lojbab wrote:

> The hard task will of course be place structures. We have of course
> got Nick's prior efforts at place-structure making from 1994, as well
> as an automated effort to build place structures for conversion lujvo
> using se, te, etc. plus a gismu. Nick has suggested using a similar
> automated procedure to generate lujvo and place structures for the
> special cases based on nu, ka, ni, mau, tol, nau, gau, sim, etc. This
> may take care of a good chunk of the lujvo already made.

> For the remaining place structures, Nick feels that we need to abandon
> our attempt at perfection and careful analysis for each word in the
> dictionary. Instead, we should have a series of code symbols or font
> coding to indicate the level of confidence that we have in the place
> structure, and also to include a code ...

It's very attractive to use an algorithmic approach to deducing the place
structure of a lujvo from its constituent gismu. Some words end up with
extra places (not likely to be used) or with an inconvenient ordering, but
if the gismu themselves are carefully crafted according to the compounds
they are often used in, usually consistently good results can be obtained.

It's too bad that Lojban has too much historical inertia, both in the gismu
places and in the lujvo, for this approach to be used throughout. But the
proposed algorithmic processing of gau and friends will help a
lot. Perhaps large categories of words can be identified with common
patterns. Such a study led me to propose my general dikyjvo rules.

I would suggest a principle for lujvo place structures, that if a place can
be served by a modal operator, and if the place doesn't drop out naturally
from the places of the component gismu, then it _should_ be left modal, not
added ad hoc. And speakers should not be shy about using a modal operator
when they can't quite remember if the official definition of a word
includes the place they want (lujvo or gismu).

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: [email-masked] http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)