Re: aphorisms & cultural gismu

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!UCL.AC.UK!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!ucleaar>]

> One major point that needs to be made, though:  And asks why "Canadian" is
> "kadno" and not "kando".  As you pointed out, there is "kandi"=="dim".
> Note that no two gismu may differ only in their final vowel, as that would
> give them identical 4-letter rafsi (kand-).
I forgot about that.
Seeing as the final vowel of a gismu is arbitrary & noncontrastive, why
did Lojban not:
(a) make gismu easier to learn by always using the same final vowel, or
requiring the final vowel to be the same as the medial one (i.e. complete
vowel harmony);
or (b) put the final vowel to some syntactic use, such as indicating the
number & types of argument the gismu has?

> Moreoever, it is against the
> driving principle of lojban to say "nobody would ever think 'you're looking
> pale today' meant 'you're looking Canadian today'".  We're trying to cook
> up an *unambiguous* language, rememner?
Yes but I was suggesting what I thought was a nonhomonymous word.

------
And