On Sunday, February 24, 2013 09:54:43 Remo Dentato wrote:
> Quite some time ago there was a long thread with a guy wanting to publish
> {la .alis}.
Are you talking about Michael Everson? He has a collection of translations of
Alice.
What ends a sei-clause? Or, what ends a sei-clause when the interpolation comes in the middle of one sentence? “Give me,” John said, “a reason to go home."
Is the position of a closing em-dash predictable?
On 26 May 2015, at 22:57, Jorge Llambías <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The terminator for "sei" is "se'u", but it is very often elidible.
Well, it’s YOUR language, guys, but that pretty much defeats the predictability of the system. If you have sei/se’u alongside lu/li’u, why can on be elided but the other not?
> Is the position of a closing em-dash predictable?
>
> Yes, but you need to parse the sentence.
Then it’s not predictable.
On 27 May 2015 10:07, "Gleki Arxokuna" <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Personally I have in my ToDo updating the translation to make it easier to read by using less complex words and constructs.
Replacing all other lujvo by zei lujvo would make it easier to discern the component parts but would make the text harder to read because of increasing verbosity and monotony.
To my mind, a reader coming across an unfamiliar lujvo should look it up in the dictionary, and shouldn't rely on guessing the meaning from the lujvo's derivational components.
--And.
On 27 May 2015 10:07, "Gleki Arxokuna" <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Personally I have in my ToDo updating the translation to make it easier to read by using less complex words and constructs.Replacing all other lujvo by zei lujvo would make it easier to discern the component parts but would make the text harder to read because of increasing verbosity and monotony.
To my mind, a reader coming across an unfamiliar lujvo should look it up in the dictionary, and shouldn't rely on guessing the meaning from the lujvo's derivational components.
--And.
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On 27 May 2015, at 10:06, Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is...@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 2015-05-26 22:33 GMT+03:00 Michael Everson <eve...@evertype.com>:
>> I need someone to help me deal with questions concerning nested quotation, and narrative structure where the narrator interjects into a quotation. The particle “sei" starts a metalinguistic discourse; what ends one?
>
> In short, the selbri (main verb) itself closes it by the virtue of how its grammar works. You may see something similar for {lo} in {lo broda} and similar constructs that in 90% of cases doesn't need any terminators (markers of the end of constructs).
A few years ago I pointed out that punctuating and capitalizing Lojban in the usual way did not change the language because it was just decorating the text in various ways; if read aloud there should be no difference. (Same as for writing Lojban in Tengwar.)
If the se’u were present, or if whatever followed the
> However, I'd prefer not nesting {sei}-clauses inside {lu ... li'u} quotes since otherwise if you do want to quote a {sei}-clause you are left with uglier ways of doing so.
"On this point,” said Michael, "I very much agree.”
"On this point, I very much agree,” said Michael.
I think given the structure a good translation for Lojban should avoid these kinds of breaks. Easier for performance (reading aloud with character and narrator voices), too.
> Also since probably this project aims at selling books I'd prefer replacing all compound words (lujvo) not in the dictionary with their expanded forms to make the reading easier for people still not fluent in Lojban.
One doubts that a Lojban Alice will sell as well as a Latin one. I can say I have often looked things up and not found them in the dictionary. Including very short particles.
And in one of the dictionaries I have, “mi” is listed on its own at the end of all the words beginning in mi-. That was odd, or an error, I guess.
> As for “Victorian” typographic principles those are IMO compatible with Lojban.
Would you like to help with the project? Including possibly “regularizing” the text as suggested above? De-compounding compounds? Restoring balance in terms of “se’u”s?
On 27 May 2015, at 12:25, Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is...@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> A few years ago I pointed out that punctuating and capitalizing Lojban in the usual way did not change the language because it was just decorating the text in various ways; if read aloud there should be no difference. (Same as for writing Lojban in Tengwar.)
>
> yes. If by punctuation you mean English-like punctuation like ".,!?<>" and not words. Modern parsers will accept this input.
That’s what I mean.
> > However, I'd prefer not nesting {sei}-clauses inside {lu ... li'u} quotes since otherwise if you do want to quote a {sei}-clause you are left with uglier ways of doing so.
>
> "On this point,” said Michael, "I very much agree.”
>
> "On this point, I very much agree,” said Michael.
>
> I think given the structure a good translation for Lojban should avoid these kinds of breaks. Easier for performance (reading aloud with character and narrator voices), too.
>
> As you wish. With breaks it'd be
>
> I fi la'e di'u - sei la Maikl pu cusku - mi so'i va'e tugni.
So…
I lu “Fi la’e di’u,” sei la Maikl pu cusku, “mi so’i va’e tugni” li’u.
But the problem again here is that for consistency (and automation) one would expect:
I lu “Fi la’e di’u,” sei la Maikl pu cusku se'u, “mi so’i va’e tugni” li’u.
Wouldn’t one?
> Without them
> I fi la'e di'u mi so'i va'e tugni, - sei la Maikl pu cusku.
So…
I lu “Fi la'e di'u mi so'i va'e tugni,” li'u sei la Maikl pu cusku [se’u].
Without punctuation between li’u and sei… And I still don’t understand the rationale for not closing the sei/se’u set.
> This of course backwards on how English does since you mark "said Michael" whereas written English marks the rest and the spoken English probably will use intonation.
Not entirely sure what you mean by “mark” here.
> Although, some might prefer splitting {lu ... li'u} into two quotes tagged with FA. But I agree that split quotes in Lojban or English text might be hard to read for speakers of some languages.
> Without split quotes but with {lu ... li'u} it'd be something like
> I "lu fi la'e di'u mi so'i va'e tugni li'u" pu cusku fa la Maikl.
> "On this point, I very much agree,” said Michael.
I would think lu/li’u would always be required.
>>> > Also since probably this project aims at selling books I'd prefer replacing all compound words (lujvo) not in the dictionary with their expanded forms to make the reading easier for people still not fluent in Lojban.
>>
>> One doubts that a Lojban Alice will sell as well as a Latin one. I can say I have often looked things up and not found them in the dictionary. Including very short particles.
>
> Which ones?
I don’t recall off-hand. Maybe it was a sorting error as you mention below.
>> And in one of the dictionaries I have, “mi” is listed on its own at the end of all the words beginning in mi-. That was odd, or an error, I guess.
>
> LaTeX sorting problems, most likely.
>
>>> > As for “Victorian” typographic principles those are IMO compatible with Lojban.
>>
>> Would you like to help with the project? Including possibly “regularizing” the text as suggested above? De-compounding compounds? Restoring balance in terms of “se’u”s?
>
> Please, tell us til what time you accept offers to help.
I’m interested in working with anyone interested in working on this with me. Soon is good.
> If at this time no one volunteers you may automatically assume that I (=la gleki) volunteer shifting the task in my ToDo list higher.
I think it would be fun working with you, and if as you say no one else is interested -- though other voices might be useful or interesting in the discussion @johncowan ;-) — it would be great if you could shift the task higher.
> Also please inform us of the deadline when this task of adapting the text both in punctuation and style has to be done.
As soon as it is done the book can be typeset and published. I suspect it might not take all that much time. But one would have to see.
On 27 May 2015, at 16:42, And Rosta <and....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, a glottal stop is a consonant, and a pause is a pause.
>
> And both phonetically realize phoneme /./.
A pause of indeterminate length is a phoneme?
>> I lu “Fi la’e di’u,” sei la Maikl pu cusku, “mi so’i va’e tugni” li’u.
>>
>> But the problem again here is that for consistency (and automation) one would expect:
>>
>> I lu “Fi la’e di’u,” sei la Maikl pu cusku se'u, “mi so’i va’e tugni” li’u.
>>
>> Wouldn’t one?
>
> But why would one expect consistency with regard to a grammatical feature that is expressly variable?
Because Lojban is hard enough and there are no native speakers?
> A rough analogy from English is the omissibility of _that_ from the start of complement clauses (e.g. "He knows (that) she is"): what lunatic would 'regularize' an English text by restoring every omitted _that_? And would you make overt *every* covert terminator?
It seems to me that a relative pronoun is different from a state process. If lu/li’u is regular, why shouldn’t sei/se’u be?
As I say, it’s your language, but this seems quite inconsistent given the logicalness one might expect.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Well, it does make it impossible to apply punctuation automatically, since the only way that one could do so is to have a script that would parse a variable-lengths string following “sei” to find the word of the selbri class. Not that the application of punctuation is a goal of Lojban.
On 28 May 2015 23:06, "Michael Everson" <eve...@evertype.com> wrote:
>
> On 27 May 2015, at 18:49, And Rosta <and....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> A pause of indeterminate length is a phoneme?
> >
> > A pause of indeterminate length is phonetic realization of a phoneme.
>
> As you wish. I love oddball linguistics. :-)
It's hardly as I wish; I think it's moronic. Almost all of the language is other than I would wish it to be.
> > sei/se'u is regular; it just is regular according to rules less simple than you would prefer.
>
> Well, it does make it impossible to apply punctuation automatically, since the only way that one could do so is to have a script that would parse a variable-lengths string following “sei” to find the word of the selbri class. Not that the application of punctuation is a goal of Lojban.
Indeed. Your project is somewhat quixotic.
I wish Lojban did less violence to prevailing typographical and orthographical conventions. I hate that sodding apostrophe, that makes the written language so instantly recognizable. But it is what it is, and if it were what I wish it were, it would be an utterly different language.
--And.
On 27 May 2015, at 18:49, And Rosta <and....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> A pause of indeterminate length is a phoneme?
>
> A pause of indeterminate length is phonetic realization of a phoneme.
As you wish. I love oddball linguistics. :-)
> Lojban's design is not at all optimized to make life easy for its learners or speakers. Its users could adopt conventions that eschew many elements of its design, in order to make life easier for its users, but that requires a consensus in usage and entails a de facto repudiation of those many elements eschewed.
Logical referents but semilogical structure? Okay.
>>> A rough analogy from English is the omissibility of _that_ from the start of complement clauses (e.g. "He knows (that) she is"): what lunatic would 'regularize' an English text by restoring every omitted _that_? And would you make overt *every* covert terminator?
>>
>> It seems to me that a [conjunction] is different from a state process.
>
> I don't understand what a 'state process' is. Like Lojban's terminators, clausal ('subordinating conjunction', 'complementizer') _that_ is usually but not always omissible without affecting sentence meaning.
Well, there’s a particle to start a paragraph (terminated by the next particle of the same kind), and one to start a sentence (terminated by the next particle of the same kind), and one to begin and end a citation (both particles used), and one to begin and end a metalingusitic interpolation (but the terminator is optional because you can use non-structural information to know when it terminates).
> (With regard to the _that_ that introduces relative clauses, the case for analysing bare relatives as containing a null _that_ is more complicated and hence perhaps weaker than the case for analysing bare complement clauses as containing a null _that_.)
I don’t see that as analogous, really.
>> If lu/li’u is regular, why shouldn’t sei/se’u be?
>
> sei/se'u is regular; it just is regular according to rules less simple than you would prefer.
Well, it does make it impossible to apply punctuation automatically, since the only way that one could do so is to have a script that would parse a variable-lengths string following “sei” to find the word of the selbri class. Not that the application of punctuation is a goal of Lojban.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
On 29 May 2015, at 08:00, Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is...@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>>> Lojban's design is not at all optimized to make life easy for its learners or speakers. Its users could adopt conventions that eschew many elements of its design, in order to make life easier for its users, but that requires a consensus in usage and entails a de facto repudiation of those many elements eschewed.
>>
>> Logical referents but semilogical structure? Okay.
>
> In what way is it semi-logical? What is logical for you?
> Lojban is logical mostly in a sense that it is easily parsable.
I guess I thought of lu/li’u and sei/se’u like opening and closing parentheses and having open parentheses in the language for both of those pairs but mandatory closing parentheses only for one of them doesn’t seem consistent.
> {sei} and bridi tails have different grammar. The selbri itself terminates {sei}-clause, thus the end of {sei}-clause is 100%-predictable. When the selbri is encountered it's the signal that {sei}-clause just ended.
Only if you know what a selbri is (or whether or not a given word is a selbri). And that means knowledge of the language, unless selbris are identifiable by their syllable structure or something.
If not, then external knowledge must be there to identify the members of a class called selbri.
By the way as a linguist I find Lojban to be completely opaque in not using words like verb or noun or adjective.
At the same time, the argument/predicate thing (and the sentence tree) makes no sense to me at all, and just reminds me of the horror of generative grammar. :-O
But, Gleki, if you want to work with me on this I think it would be fun, and wouldn’t take so much time perhaps.
> > sei/se'u is regular; it just is regular according to rules less simple than you would prefer.
>
> Well, it does make it impossible to apply punctuation automatically, since the only way that one could do so is to have a script that would parse a variable-lengths string following “sei” to find the word of the selbri class. Not that the application of punctuation is a goal of Lojban.
>
> I see, so you want to put European-like punctuation at the end of {sei}-clauses. This is certainly possible. Are you planning to publish any other books apart from Alice?
Could do, if it is fun. :-)
> If yes, then it's a matter of several patches to existing parsers to output such punctuation. Instead of " SEhU-clause?" we'll just have " (SEhU-clause / { ' – ' } ) “.
So the parser can identify a selbri?
Gleki Arxokuna, On 31/05/2015 17:53:
2015-05-31 19:36 GMT+03:00 Pierre Abbat <ph...@bezitopo.org <mailto:ph...@bezitopo.org>>:
There are parts of speech in Lojban that
don't exist in natlangs that I know of, such as terminators.
the right part of circumposition is called "terminator" in Lojban.
That's an interesting and potentially insightful definition, but it turns an awful lot of things into adpositions.
Maybe it would be better to say that the morphophonological form of a phrase is derived not by simple concatenation of the morphophonological forms of the phrase's constituents but rather by 'circumcatenation', with the morphophonological form of the head wrapped around the morphophonological form of its complement.
--And.