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06/01/93 Lojban baseline rafsi list part 4 of 5
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xa xav 6
xabju xa'u dwell
xadba xab half
xadni xad body
xagji hunger
xagri reed
xajmi xam funny
xaksu xak use up
xalbo levity
xalka xal alcohol
xalni panic
xamgu xag xau good
xampo xap xa'o ampere
xamsi xas sea
xance xan xa'e hand
xanka nervous
xanri xar imaginary
xanto elephant
xarci xac xa'i weapon
xarju xaj pig
xarnu stubborn
xasli donkey
xasne sweat
xatra xa'a letter
xatsi xat 1E-18
xazdo xaz zdo Asiatic
xe xel 5th conversion
xebni xen xei hate
xebro xeb bro Hebrew
xecto xet cto 100
xedja xej xe'a jaw
xekri xek xe'i black
xelso xes Greek
xendo xed xe'o kind
xenru xer xe'u regret
xexso xex 1E18
xindo xin Hindi
xinmo xim ink
xirma xir xi'a horse
xislu xil xi'u wheel
xispo xip Hispanic
xlali xla bad
xlura xlu influence
xotli xol xoi hotel
xrabo rab Arabic
xrani xai injure
xriso xis xi'o Christian
xruba xub buckwheat
xruki xuk turkey
xrula rul flower
xruti xru return
xukmi xum xu'i chemical
xunre xun xu'e red
xurdo xur xu'o Urdi
xusra xus xu'a assert
xutla xul smooth
za'i zaz state abstract
za'o za'o superfective
zabna zan za'a favorable
zajba zaj gymnast
zalvi zal grind
zanru zar zau approve
zarci zac zai market
zargu zag za'u buttock
zasni zas temporary
zasti zat za'i exist
zbabu bab soap
zbani bay
zbasu zba make
zbepi zbe pedestal
zdani zda nest
zdile zdi amusing
ze zel 7
ze'e ze'e whole time interval
ze'o zev ze'o outward
zekri zer zei crime
zenba zen ze'a increase
zepti zep 1E-21
zetro zet 1E21
zgana zga observe
zgike zgi gi'e music
zifre zif zi'e free
zinki zin zi'i zinc
zirpu zir zi'u purple
zivle ziv vle invest
zmadu zma mau more
zmiku zmi automatic
zo'a zon zo'a tangential to
zo'i zor zo'i inward
zu'o zum activity abstract
zukte zuk zu'e act
zumri zmu maize
zungi zug guilt
zunle zul left
zunti zun zu'i interfere
zutse zut tse sit
zvati k zva at
Lojban lujvo-MAKING
- Rules for Lojban word forms - The lujvo must be formed according to
Lojban's word-formation rules. The constraints of Lojban word forms
forbid any lujvo from ending in a consonant, so that words most commonly
found in the final position of a tanru have been prioritized to have a
rafsi that ends in a vowel. However, words found in initial positions
often form better sounding combinations if their rafsi end in a
consonant. (Also, because we usually recognize words by the consonants
in them rather than the vowels, the rafsi of form CVV and CV'V are
harder to memorize. Note: C and V in abbrevaiations of this sort stand
for any Lojban consonant and vowel, respectively. The apostrophe is the
Lojban "'", which is considered neither a consonant nor a vowel.)
Certain sounds are forbidden to occur next to each other (so- called
'impermissible medial' consonants), and must be separated by a
'hyphen'-sound, the "uh" of "sofa", represented in Lojban by the let-
ter 'y' (this letter is found only as a hyphen, in lerfu, the words for
letters of the alphabet, and along to represent the hesitation noise.
It is thus not normally considered a 'V' is the C/V convention scheme.
Indeed, "CyC" is considered a consonant cluster in Lojban morphology,
albeit a hyphenated one). In addition, a CVV or CV'V rafsi at the
beginning of any lujvo must either carry the penultimate stress, it must
be 'glued' to the remaining rafsi with a syllabic 'r' or 'n' sound, or
the rafsi falls off into a separate word, a cmavo. (In addition, a CVV
or CV'V rafsi followed by another CVV or CV'V rafsi in a 2-term lujvo
must have the 'r' or 'n' added, or the consonant cluster mandatory in
any brivla in not present, and the rafsi break up into two separate
cmavo.)
- Multiple rafsi to choose from - Because of these rules, there is
usually more than one rafsi usable for each gismu. The one to be used
is simply whichever sounds best to the speaker/writer. There are many
valid combinations of the possible rafsi. Any rafsi for a given word is
equally valid in place of another, AND ALL MEAN THE SAME THING. There
is an optional scoring component to the lujvo-making algorithm which
attempts to systematically pick the 'best' one; this algorithm tries for
short forms and tends to push more vowels into the words to make them
easier to say. The Japanese, Chinese, and Polynesian speak- ers will
prefer this; Russians have a different aesthetic, since they are used to
saying consonant clusters. But these are not necessarily the criteria
you will wish to use.
- lujvo have ONE meaning - While a tanru is ambiguous, having several
possible meanings, a lujvo (one that would be put into the dictionary)
has ONE MEANING. Just like gismu, a lujvo is a predicate which
encompasses one area of the semantic universe, with one set of places.
Hopefully this is the most 'useful' or 'logical' of the possible
semantic spaces. A known source of linguistic drift in Lojban will be
as Lojbanic society evolves, and the concept represented by a sequence
of rafsi that is most 'useful' or 'logical' changes. At that time, it
might be decided that we want to redefine the lujvo to assume the new
meaning. lujvo must not be allowed to retain two meanings. So those
that maintain the dictionary will be ever watchful of tanru and lujvo
usage to ensure this standard is kept.
One should try to be aware of the possibility of prior meanings of a new
lujvo, especially if you are writing for 'posterity'. If a lujvo is
invented which involves the same tanru as one that is in the dictionary,
and is assigned a different meaning (including a different place
structure), linguistic drift results. This isn't necessarily bad; it
happens in every natural language. You communicate quite well in
English even though you don't know most words in the dictionary, and in
spite of the fact that you use some words in ways not found in the
dictionary. Whenever you use a meaning different from the dictionary
definition, you risk a reader/listener using the dictionary and
therefore misunderstanding you. One major reason for having a standard
lujvo scoring algorithm is that with several possible rafsi choices to
consider, a dictionary is most efficient by putting the definition under
the single most preferred form.
You may optionally mark a nonce word that you create without checking a
dictionary by preceding it with "za'e". "za'e" simply tells the
listener that the word is a nonce word, and may not agree with a
dictionary entry for that sequence of rafsi. The essential nature of
human communication is that if the listener understands, then all is
well. Let this be the ultimate guideline for choosing meanings and
place structures for invented lujvo.
- Zipf's law and lujvo - This complication is simple, but is the
scariest. Zipf's Law (actually a hypothesis), says that the length of
words is inversely proportional to their frequency of usage. The
shortest words are those which are used more; the longest ones are used
less. The corollary for Lojban is that commonly used concepts will tend
to be abbreviated. Speakers will choose the shortest form for
frequently expressed ideas that gets their meaning across, even at the
cost of accuracy in meaning. In English, we have abbreviations and
acronyms and jargon, all of which are words for complex ideas used with
high frequency by a group of people. So they shortened them to convey
the often-used information more rapidly.
The jargon-forming interpretation of Zipf's Law may be a cause of
multiple meanings of words in the natural languages, especially of short
words. If true, it threatens the Lojban rule that all lujvo must have
one meaning. The Lojbanist thus resigned accepts a complication in
lujvo-making: A perfectly good and clear tanru may have to be
abbreviated, if the concept it represents likely will be used so often
as to cause Zipf's Law to take effect.
Thus, given a tanru with grouping markers, abstraction markers, and
other cmavo in it to make the tanru syntactically unambiguous, in many
cases one drops some of the cmavo to make a shorter (incorrect) tanru,
and then uses that one to make the lujvo.
This doesn't lead to ambiguity, as it might seem. A given lujvo still
has exactly one meaning and place structure. But now, more than one
tanru is competing for the same lujvo. This is not as difficult to
accept or allow for as it might seem: more than one meaning for a
single tanru was already competing for the 'right' to be used for the
lujvo. Someone has to use judgement in deciding which one meaning is to
be chosen over the others. This judgement will be made on the basis of
usage, presumably by some fairly logical criteria.
If the lujvo made by a shorter form of tanru is already in use, or is
likely to be useful for another meaning, the wordmaker then retains one
or more of the cmavo, preferably ones that clearly set this meaning
apart from the shorter form meaning that is used or anticipated. In
Lojban, therefore, shorter lujvo will be used for a less complicated
concept, possibly even over a more frequent word. If two concepts
compete for a single rafsi sequence, the simpler concept will take a
shorter form, and the more complex concept will have some indication of
its more complex nature added into the word structure. It is easier to
add a cmavo to clarify the meaning of a more complex term than it is to
find a good alternate tanru for the simpler term.
A good lujvo-composer considers the listener, and a good lujvo
interpreter remebers the difficulties of lujvo-making. If someone hears
a word he doesn't know, decomposes it, and gets a tanru that makes no
sense for the context, he knows that the grouping operators may have
been dropped out, he may try alternate groupings. Or he may try using
the verb form of the concept instead of the first sumti, inserting an
abstraction operator if it seems plausible. Plausibility is key to
learning new ideas, and evaluating unfamiliar lujvo.
SHORT FORM OF THE LUJVO-MAKING ALGORITHM
The rules for the lujvo-making algorithm are stated formally. This may
cause it to appear intimidating to a casual reader, and to seem harder
than it really is to use. The following brief form, is more practical
to learn.
1. Find all rafsi forms for the component words. 5-letter forms can only
occur in final position, 4-letter+y form, and CVC short forms can only
occur in non-final positions. Make all possible combinations of the
rafsi for the component words, keeping the order of the component words.
2. Between any two impermissible medial consonants (see 5c of the formal
algorithm), stick a y.
3. Where there is a consonant triple formed where two rafsi join, if it
is impermissible (see 5d of the formal algorithm), stick in a y where
they join.
4. If you have a CVV rafsi at the beginning, add in an r hyphen after
it. An n is used instead if the letter after the hyphen is also an r.
However, in a tanru with only 2 parts, do not add a hyphen when the
second rafsi is a CCV-form.
5. Always stick in a y hyphen after a 4-letter form, which is the gismu
without its final letter.
6. Perform the "tosmabru" test. Starting from the left, look for a
sequence of 2-or-more CVC rafsi ending with (the first) hyphen 'y', or
one-or-more CVC rafsi followed by an endDofDword CVCCV full word rafsi
with a permissible medial as the CC. If either case occurs, look at
each consonant pair, and if all of them are permissible initial
consonant pairs, insert a 'y' hyphen between the first consonant pair.