Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: (C)V'{i|u}V

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 00:07:40 -0400

At 11:00 PM 8/4/01 +0100, Richard Curnow wrote:
>On Fri, Aug 03, 2001 at 06:25:36PM -0500, Michal Wallace wrote:
> > I believe the issue here is that "ue" is not a valid lojban dipthong,
> > whereas "ai" is.. If "ue" isn't a dipthong, is must be two syllables,
> > and therefore the same as bu,e or bu'e.. But "bai" sounds like "bye",
> > not "ba ee", so if you want "ba ee" you need a comma or apostrophe.
>
>So this raises a new question, should we treat any vowel pair that is
>not a valid diphthong as though it has a hidden comma in it?
>
>ai, au, ei and oi would always have to be left as they are.
>
>Others (aa,ae,ao,ea,ee,eo,eu,oa,oe,oo,ou) _could_ be automatically
>treated as though they have a comma (==apostrophe). But is this
>entertained by the baseline?
>
>The remainder (the 10 starting with "i" or "u") are more tricky, because
>they are already valid when used stand-alone as cmavo, or within fu'ivla
>or cmene. So I guess the question is : in a word that would be a lujvo
>had the pair been "ai" instead, or a cmavo starting with a consonant,
>does the baseline treat these 10 pairs treated as though they have a
>comma (=apostrophe) in them? i.e. could the word jbofi'e be shortened
>to jbofie, on the basis that "ie" is invalid in a lujvo so the hidden
>comma (=apostrophe) can be re-introduced without ambiguity?

This is the assumption of the alternate (TLI) orthography, but should not 
be used except in that orthography because of audiovisual isomorphism - it 
isn't ALWAYS possible to pronounce "ie" that way.

In the general case, this compression is undesirable because it limits what 
is possible in name and fu'ivla formation. The questions Nick posted 
involve a couple such cases where using alternate orthography, two 
different pronunciations would get compressed into one if "ie" were always 
assumed to be a disyllable except in standalone.

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