On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Daniel Brockman <dbro...@gmail.com> wrote:Merge the syntactic classes cmevla and brivla, yes. Brivla would still
>
> In effect, what you're saying is that you want to completely merge
> cmevla and fu'ivla.
be divided in four morphological classes: gismu/lujvo/fu'ivla/cmevla,
but there is no need for the last class to have its own separate
syntax.
A predicate "xorxes" could mean "is named 'xorxes'", if anything at
> I don't really see what you're saying here, unless you also want to
> argue that {.xorxes.} has a "meaning". What's the difference?
all.
On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:15 PM, tijlan <jbot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/5/7 Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
>>
>> Merge the syntactic classes cmevla and brivla, yes. Brivla would still
>> be divided in four morphological classes: gismu/lujvo/fu'ivla/cmevla,
>> but there is no need for the last class to have its own separate
>> syntax.
>
> I guess the merging would involve changing the stress rules for cmevla aNo, the phonological/morphological rules are totally independent of
> little bit.
what I'm saying. All the phonological rules accomplish is break down a
string of phonemes into a string of words. Once we have those words
identified, how they are then structured to form a text is independent
of the previous step.
2010/5/8 Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:15 PM, tijlan <jbot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/5/7 Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com>
>>
>> Merge the syntactic classes cmevla and brivla, yes. Brivla would still
>> be divided in four morphological classes: gismu/lujvo/fu'ivla/cmevla,
>> but there is no need for the last class to have its own separate
>> syntax.
>
> I guess the merging would involve changing the stress rules for cmevla aNo, the phonological/morphological rules are totally independent of
> little bit.
what I'm saying. All the phonological rules accomplish is break down a
string of phonemes into a string of words. Once we have those words
identified, how they are then structured to form a text is independent
of the previous step.
Yes, I understand that. What I'm failing to see in spite of my 3 years of Lojban experience is how a listener (not a reader) is supposed to recognise the 'pause after the final consonant' of a cmevla. How exactly is the pause supposed to be realised orally, so as to differentiate the sequence of sounds "min.ci" from "minci"?
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I noticed something on that page that I didn't understand. Why get rid of sa? What could be more clear than "take next word and erase all previous words back to the last occurrence of the following word"? What confusions arise from this definition/usage? Or maybe I'm confusing sa with su
On May 13, 2010 8:30 AM, "Jorge Llambías" <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 10:48 PM, purpleposeidon
<purplep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Xorxes, do you ...
Most of them are listed here:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=zasni+gerna+cenba+vreji
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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I do not like this idea at all.
Leave names be names.
What's wrong with {.i mi klama fu le mi karce no'u la .opel.} if you
have to be explicit about the brand name?
If we make cmevla usable as selbri, then there's little to no point or
motive to create or use fu'ivla, and then we might as well just say
"fuck it" and use all English words written in Lojban phonology. This
is a horrible idea.
By your logic we may as well say {.i mi .going. .stor. .xaus.}, and
then why bother? Just speak English. >_>
To me you're now breaking the uniqueness of Lojban by essentially
making a really stupid shortcut so nobody has to use fu'ivla or lujvo
ever again.
deal with {fu'ivla} morphology or "{me la}." However, prior texts which did
not separate {cmevla} from following {selbri} (e.g., "{la .ktulxus. senva
So this change assumes dotside in order to work, right?
On May 19, 2010 8:38 AM, "Jorge Llambías" <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 2:24 AM, Oleksii Melnyk <lame...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> More possible issues...
Anything preceded by "la" is a name. "la plipe klupe clupa" is one
name, the meaning of the internal tanru is not relevant to that.
Any stress, yes. Any pause, no. cmevla must be surrounded by pauses.
> 2. Names was allowed to have any stresses/pauses (afair).
And, like for any other word, you cannot pause in the middle of a
cmevla
> We can, probably,
> have an ambiguous parsing of some weird enough names, especially in spoken
> ...
No, there is no change at all in the morphology rules.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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Anything preceded by "la" is a name.
And, like for any other word, you cannot pause in the middle of a
cmevla
Can you give an example? ... Are you talking about human parsing?
The exact same problem exists with or without the change. The
change has no relevance to word parsing.
Why would a text be full of cmevla? As you say, cmevla are a
cumbersome type of word, so they don't blend well with normal Lojban
words. Simplifying their syntax would not make them morphologically
prettier, it would only make the syntax simpler.
A human parser will either recognize the word, ... or (most likely)
they won't recognize it, in which case they will say "ki'a" whether
Are you saying that with the current grammar ... I will attempt a
possible correction ... whereas with the change ... I will not. Is that the point?
I don't understand what you mean by that. Trying to read what aloud
would push the language towards...
Names still have to be labeled with "la", whether the word ends in a
vowel or a consonant.
It breaks the 'phonological fluidity' of the language by putting
irregular word-forms in places where they aren't normally allowed.
While I think the idea is great in theory, it probably isn't so much
in practice. The apparent advantages don't really outweigh the
disadvantages, methinks. While it would allow names in tanru (so I can
have a xorxes-ish laugh or a camgusmis-ish smile), allowing them to
mean anything other than "x1 is called..." would just allow laziness.
Why bother learning the fu'ivla, or even coming up with one when we
can just use cmevla strings and give them any definition we want?
> As I said, I would use "spageti", not ".spagetis." for "spaghetti",
Right, but that's you. I see the possibility for a huge trend to come
of this where people -don't- bother with fu'ivla, and possibly don't
even bother with lujvo because it's easier to use selbri cmevla. Even
so, really what you're doing is forcing every .namestring. to be read
with "me la", which makes me wonder why we can't just keep doing that.
If cmevla break the "phonological fluidity", which presumably is something
that speakers care about (otherwise why would it be a problem?), then isn't
that in itself a strong reason for people to keep coining fu'ivla and lujvo?
On the other hand, if people stop coining fu'ivla and lujvo just because we
allow cmevla to be used as brivla, wouldn't that imply "phonological fluidity"
maybe wasn't that important after all?
I'm certain that this change would increase the usage of cmevla (since it
couldn't possibly decrease it). But I'm equally certain that common words
would not remain as cmevla if people started getting annoyed with them.
By your reasoning, stage-3 fu'ivla is an even more horrible idea, since who
wants the entire language infected by these weird prefixes and r-hyphens?
And what about the fact that a lujvo can be 15+ letters long? That's a pain
in the ass. Who wants to go around saying {mitpavycinglepre}? No, we need
to put a three-rafsi limit on lujvo, or the language will eventually turn into
some monstrous German-like disaster.
Finally, it's quite ironic that you, who so abhor anything that interferes with
the "phonological fluidity", wants us to "just keep saying {me la}" everywhere.
On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:40 PM, Lindar <lindar...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Why is it a horrible idea? What are the meanings of the stage-three
>> and stage-four fu'ivla "cidjrspageti" and "spageti"?
>
> It breaks the 'phonological fluidity' of the language by putting
> irregular word-forms in places where they aren't normally allowed.
This argument is really vague. What does "irregular word-form" mean?
What does "normally allowed" mean? Are you saying that this change
would make there be too many pauses?
> Why bother learning the fu'ivla, or even coming up with one when we
> can just use cmevla strings and give them any definition we want?
Because if you make up your own words instead of learning the existing
ones, you won't understand anybody, and nobody will understand you.
If you're saying that this change could result in fu'ivla being
abandoned altogether, why is that a bad thing? Specifically, what is
it about cmevla-as-selbri that makes them good for the speaker but bad
for the language?
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> If you're saying that this change could result in fu'ivla being
> abandoned altogether, why is that a bad thing? Specifically, what is
> it about cmevla-as-selbri that makes them good for the speaker but bad
> for the language?
The case against long lujvo is moot. We create loanwords from our own
language when they become too long. Also, mitpavycinglepre is a really
stupid example as that isn't an accurate lujvo for 'homosexual', and
I'm quite offended by the idea that we have to have a word like that
in a more enlightened age where gender and sexuality are fluid enough
to warrant "nakni cinse", "fetsi cinse" and so on. I personally am
offended by the use of "mitpavycinglepre".
That aside, my point is that we create fu'ivla of exceptionally long
lujvo in an effort to keep them short. It's like the lojbanic version
of abbreviating things.
We have a standard of phonological rules in Lojban. Everything ends in
a vowel, anything with two or more syllables has penultimate stress,
things have to have correct consonant clusters so they don't break
apart. There is an ordered and well-thought-out structure to every
single word, phrase, emphasis, and every other thing in the language.
The ONLY thing that ends in a consonant is a name, and so names become
easy to pick out due to the fact that we rarely use them in
conversation, and they sound nothing like the rest of the language. On
that mental parse tree, if we used "xorla", I would now have to stop
and question every single cmevla to check whether or not it's being
used as a selbri.
If we restricted cmevla selbri to ONLY being "x1 is named/called...",
then I would agree full-tilt with this proposal. If that doesn't work
with everybody else, then can we at least put -some- restrictions on
them? Perhaps that they're restricted to being single place selbri?
=D We can call my proposal "linla" in honour of xorxes. ((zo'o))
Sigh, no. One word: dotside.
>> If you're saying that this change could result in fu'ivla being
>> abandoned altogether, why is that a bad thing? Specifically, what is
>> it about cmevla-as-selbri that makes them good for the speaker but bad
>> for the language?
>
> The case against long lujvo is moot. We create loanwords from our own
> language when they become too long. Also, mitpavycinglepre is a really
> stupid example as that isn't an accurate lujvo for 'homosexual',
There's no such thing as an "accurate lujvo". But the fact of the matter
is that {mitpavycinglepre} is a well-established word. And my point is
exactly that at some point people thought it was getting too inconvenient.
So we shortened it. Rationalized it. Came up with a slicker word for it.
http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/dict/mitcinse
> and
> I'm quite offended by the idea that we have to have a word like that
> in a more enlightened age where gender and sexuality are fluid enough
> to warrant "nakni cinse", "fetsi cinse" and so on. I personally am
> offended by the use of "mitpavycinglepre".
Well, thank you for proving my point. Inconvenient words for important
concepts are always undesirable, whether they be cmevla, lujvo, or fu'ivla.
> That aside, my point is that we create fu'ivla of exceptionally long
> lujvo in an effort to keep them short. It's like the lojbanic version
> of abbreviating things.
Exactly the same can be done with cmevla.
> We have a standard of phonological rules in Lojban. Everything ends in
> a vowel,
Not cmevla, and they are part of the language.
> anything with two or more syllables has penultimate stress,
Not necessarily cmavo, and not necessarily cmevla.
> things have to have correct consonant clusters so they don't break
> apart.
That's one requirement for gismu, lujvo and fu'ivla, yes. There are others for
those classes and there are yet others for other classes. For example, cmavo
can not have any consonant clusters, and cmevla must end in consonants.
> There is an ordered and well-thought-out structure to every
> single word, phrase, emphasis, and every other thing in the language.
Well... heh. Let's agree to disagree on that.
> The ONLY thing that ends in a consonant is a name, and so names become
> easy to pick out due to the fact that we rarely use them in
> conversation, and they sound nothing like the rest of the language.
You're exaggerating how different they sound. They only use Lojban phonemes,
and most of them sound exactly like a brivla with a consonant at the end.
By your reasoning, every kind of word in Lojban sounds nothing like the
rest of the language. Yet that's a feature. It's a good thing. (In English,
all the words sound just like each other.)
The rules for fu'ivla are more relaxed than for other brivla, but I don't see
you proposing to ban fu'ivla because they can sound a bit different.
> On that mental parse tree, if we used "xorla", I would now have to
> stop and question every single cmevla to check whether or not it's
> being used as a selbri.
You don't have to "stop and question" every cmevla. That's not how
language works. Do you have to stop and question every word to
check whether or not it's being quoted? Do you have to stop and
question every brivla to see whether it's being used as a name?
No, you don't, because that's not how language works.
I guess you would prefer if we didn't have selbri names?
> If we restricted cmevla selbri to ONLY being "x1 is named/called...",
> then I would agree full-tilt with this proposal. If that doesn't work
> with everybody else, then can we at least put -some- restrictions on
> them? Perhaps that they're restricted to being single place selbri?
>
> =D We can call my proposal "linla" in honour of xorxes. ((zo'o))
(No comment.)
>> This argument is really vague. What does "irregular word-form" mean?
>> What does "normally allowed" mean? Are you saying that this change
>> would make there be too many pauses?
>
> lojbancanbereadasonebigstringwhichishowit'sheardinspeachsoifwesuddenlyintroducewordsthatCANendinconsonantsthenwefrackuptheabilitytopickoutwordsaccurately.
How about learning the current Lojban morphology before attacking "changes"
that don't actually change it one iota? Lojban can be unambiguously written
without spaces only if stress and all mandatory stops are explicitly marked.
The morphology algorithm breaks words apart and determines what words are of
what type before the grammar has any say in anything. Changing where cmevla
are *grammatical* does not affect the *morphology*. The grammar is only
involved after the phoneme or text stream is broken into words by the
morphology.
>> If you're saying that this change could result in fu'ivla being
>> abandoned altogether, why is that a bad thing? Specifically, what is
>> it about cmevla-as-selbri that makes them good for the speaker but bad
>> for the language?
>
> The case against long lujvo is moot. We create loanwords from our own
> language when they become too long. Also, mitpavycinglepre is a really
> stupid example as that isn't an accurate lujvo for 'homosexual', and
> I'm quite offended by the idea that we have to have a word like that
> in a more enlightened age where gender and sexuality are fluid enough
> to warrant "nakni cinse", "fetsi cinse" and so on. I personally am
> offended by the use of "mitpavycinglepre".
And I am offended that after we come up with a huge set of words to precisely
cover every part of the Venn diagram of possible human sexuality, you come in
and express offense at the existence of a word for a particular part of that.
> That aside, my point is that we create fu'ivla of exceptionally long
> lujvo in an effort to keep them short. It's like the lojbanic version
> of abbreviating things.
That's really not done much at all (I first heard of it a few months ago), but
it is a somewhat nifty approach.
> We have a standard of phonological rules in Lojban. Everything ends in
> a vowel, anything with two or more syllables has penultimate stress,
> things have to have correct consonant clusters so they don't break
> apart. There is an ordered and well-thought-out structure to every
> single word, phrase, emphasis, and every other thing in the language.
> The ONLY thing that ends in a consonant is a name, and so names become
> easy to pick out due to the fact that we rarely use them in
> conversation, and they sound nothing like the rest of the language. On
> that mental parse tree, if we used "xorla", I would now have to stop
> and question every single cmevla to check whether or not it's being
> used as a selbri.
Again, this doesn't change the morphology at all. cmevla are defined and
identified exactly as before, they just also are grammatically valid in other
places.
> If we restricted cmevla selbri to ONLY being "x1 is named/called...",
> then I would agree full-tilt with this proposal. If that doesn't work
> with everybody else, then can we at least put -some- restrictions on
> them? Perhaps that they're restricted to being single place selbri?
>
> =D We can call my proposal "linla" in honour of xorxes. ((zo'o))
>
>
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/
And entropy continued to increase.
The ONLY thing that ends in a consonant is a name, and so names become
easy to pick out due to the fact that we rarely use them in
conversation, and they sound nothing like the rest of the language.
On
that mental parse tree, if we used "xorla", I would now have to stop
and question every single cmevla to check whether or not it's being
used as a selbri.
That's really
not done much at all (I first heard of it a few months ago), but
it
is a somewhat nifty approach.>>
Have y'all forgotten Zipf's law, which, while not prescriptive, is certainly predictive? If you don't like this trick, try another, but someone is going to do the cutting sometime for sure (assuming the language lives).
Same as between {lo broca} and {la broca}.
> Can cmevla have multiple places?
I don't see why not?
> Is {me} being removed from the grammar due to it not being necessary
> after this change?
No, definitely not.
> Could this possibly be used as a system for creating "slang" words?
Sure, why not? That's a good thing about cmevla: they're easy to make.
> Could somebody please write a few sample bridi using this new rule?
I'll pass.
Well, {la broca} is "Broca", but {lo broca} is just undefined.
The same would be true of {lo lindar} (although xorxes has suggested that the
most useful definition of at least many existing cmevla would be as you say).
I wouldn't focus so much on that "default meaning" stuff, as it makes the
whole concept more difficult to grasp.
>> > Can cmevla have multiple places?
>>
>> I don't see why not?
>
> .spagetis. = x1 is spaghetti with sauce x2
> ??
Sure. (Although "x1 is spaghetti of type x2" would be more likely.)
>> > Is {me} being removed from the grammar due to it not being necessary
>> > after this change?
>>
>> No, definitely not.
>
> Then under what condition would it still be used?
Well, that's a pretty broad question. Whenever you want to convert a sumti
into a selbri. i lo me zo me selbri cu plixau
> Well, I'm convinced. It seems like a decent idea as long as it doesn't
> get abused. Do we just start using it now, is there some kind of
> ceremony we have to have first, or... what now?
You can smoke whatever weird experimental stuff you can fit in your pipe,
but don't expect something like this to just suddenly change overnight.
Most Lojbanists probably haven't even read this, much less commented.
But people experiment with all kinds of stuff all the time (e.g., on IRC).
> Does everybody agree on exactly how it'll work?
I suggest you focus on the essence of it, and the essence of it is extremely
simple: We treat cmevla exactly as we treat brivla. Read that again, slowly:
We treat cmevla exactly as we treat brivla.
You know how brivla work, right? What {lo broda} and {la broda} mean?
Good. Then you know how cmevla work under xorla (i.e., exactly the same).
That wasn't meant as a comment about you so much as a comment about the
simplicity of the basic proposal, though.
> We can't come up with a different name? I'm pretty sure that, aside
> from brodV, we're not supposed to have gismu that are the same
> excepting the final vowel.
These are just names. They're not gismu in the sense of "root words",
they're gismu only in the purely morphological sense.
> I have a very valid question for all involved:
>
> Will we be documenting definitions for cmevla now that they are valid
> brivla, or should it be left up to context?
You're being a little too forward with this ("now that they are valid brivla").
What we should do is just to continue experimenting and discussing.
--
{la donri} means "That named Day". {la} does not remove the meaning.
mi'e dag — donri in Swedish.
.spagetis. = x1 is spaghetti with sauce x2
??
In fact, there are not just two levels to this. Already, {la irc} is vague
about whether spelling or pronunciation is important. Already, {la donri}
can be translated literally into Swedish but not English. Other names are
relatively "transparent": {la dansu be fi'o kansa lo labno} can be translated
into any language with an acceptable result. Some names are strings of rafsi.
Some are brivla with dummy consonants tacked on; some are brivla with vowels
chopped off. Some, like {daniel}, are almost completely intact and can be both
phonologically and letter-wise translated into any language with an acceptable
result; others have been mangled to fit Lojban phonology and morphology and
must be "unmangled" when translated into another language.
There are many kinds of names in Lojban, and that's okay.
So it makes sense for Lojban to simply not specify one way or the other.
We should allow both "meaningful" and "meaningless" names; both names
where spelling is important and names where pronunciation is important.
In almost all cases, this will be totally irrelevant. In most other cases,
context will be sufficient. For the last few cases, we could come up with a
system for indicating the level of meaning. But {la} by itself cannot do it.
Obviously we're never going to agree on whether {la} "removes" the
meaning from whatever comes after or if it "retains" the meaning.
Already, {la irc} is vague about whether spelling or pronunciation is important.
I do not think the change is worth it. Lojban has two open parts of speech
(cmevla, brivla) to English's four (noun, verb, adjective, adverb). (Yes I
know there are languages with two kinds of adjective, or no distinction
between verb or adjective, etc. All my native languages have those four.) It
is possible to use "la" with a brivla, or "me" with a cmene, or make a brivla
corresponding to a cmevla (e.g. sfa'ani/isfa'an). But generally the two parts
of speech serve distinct functions and should be kept separate.
Pierre
--
La sal en el mar es más que en la sangre.
Le sel dans la mer est plus que dans le sang.
Might make more sense to make {la} always the default. Simplifies the rules,
and puts those of us with selbri names on an equal footing. But I can see
arguments either way.
mu'o mi'e la xalbo do'u mi'e xalbo je'u
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/
One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters.
--Aragorn
I often use "doi pendo", "doi dirba", "doi patfu", etc with no "la" implied.
I think "coi xalbo" could be "coi la xalbo" or "coi lo xalbo"
depending on context, no need to rule either out. You can always use
the gadri explicitly if confusion is possible or likely.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
+1
Obvious, simple, and good. I use {coi pendo}, etc., a lot as well.
It's always bugged me that {coi la xalbo} needs {la} but {coi daniel} doesn't.
Although it doesn't really affect your main point, I feel like I should point
out that interpretation of vocatives is entirely *semantic*, not
syntactic/grammatical. It *is* regular grammar; it's the same grammar as
before, except that the rules for <COI> <selbri> and <COI> <CMENE>+ have now
been merged. A computer could still parse vocatives, and the resulting syntax
tree would be the same. The {lo}/{le}/{la} ambiguity only becomes apparent if
a computer or human attempts to assign a *meaning* to a vocative, which is at
least one level of abstraction higher than the grammar. Moreover, Lojban
already contains known (and unavoidable) semantic ambiguities, such as {tanru}
(which are ambiguous almost by definition), determining whether an instance of
"{lo broda}" under xorlo truly {broda}s, and, say, referring to "{la .djan.}"
in a bathroom full of male native Anglophones accompanied by ladies of
negotiable affection (I apologize for the mental image). The question (well,
*a* question) is whether this new potential ambiguity of vocatives does not
exceed these other uncertainties.
mu'omi'e .kamymecraijun.
--
jicmu traji zifre fa loi remna lonu senpi
No, a parser definitely does not need to know things like that.
Jbofi'e is both a parser and a glosser, and it is fulfilling the latter role
when it gives meanings for phrases. Parsing consists solely of determining the
grammatical structure of a text (i.e., what parts are {selbri}, {sumti},
numbers, etc.) and does *not* involve determining or assigning meaning to a
text, which is done *after* parsing.
> I don't think we can just say "whatever" and leave it up to context. A
> parser needs to know what the default is if one is not specified.
No, a glosser or translator needs to know which {gadri} to use. A program that
is a parser and nothing more (regardless of how useless it may seem) only needs
to know the {selma'o} & pseudo-{selma'o} of its input and, of course, the rules
of Lojban syntax. All it generates from this is a syntax tree or equivalent
structure, which, by itself, conveys no useful information about the meaning of
a text.
mu'omi'e .kamymecraijun.
--
bu'u la .lojbangug. lo bangu cu daspo do