Subject: Re: [lojban] selma'o considered harmful

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 23:25:45 -0700 (PDT)

cu'u la lojbab. sera'a zo selma'o

>It is bogus from the standpoint of rigorous tanru/dikyjvo etymology, but
>this is a case where a lujvo through usage does not strictly mean what its
>etymology suggests. selma'o was coined as a word for "lexeme" when dikyjvo
>did not exist and it is thoroughly ensconced in our literature with that
>meaning. I think it is now a little too late to do to selma'o what we did
>to kunbri (now selbri, and the former is long forgotten) and le'avla (now
>fu'ivla, but you can still find the former sometimes).

1) Our literature? You mean, the literature I'm currently reediting?

2) selma'o ensconced as 'lexeme'? As in the Book, 2.18's definition?

#selma'o:
# a group of cmavo that have the same grammatical use (can appear
#interchangeably in sentences, as far as the grammar is concerned) but
#differ in meaning or other usage. See Chapter 20.

Or Chapter 20 thereof, which lists only cmavo?

The occasional *and incidental* mention of selma'o BRIVLA in Chapter 21,
in that case, can
readily be treated as an erratum. The lexemes of Lojban are neither
selma'o nor vlalei, but vlagenkle: word grammatical class. (The vlalei is
a more generic, morphologic class.)

3) Never mind dikyjvo: if a selcmavo is not exactly the same thing as a se
cmavo, then what language *are* we speaking?

I'm unconvinced selma'o as used to mean 'lexeme' is not an error.

-- 
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Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
[email-masked] -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias