Re: lujvo morphology

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>]

R.M. Uittenbogaard wrote:
>....In one of the ckafybarja texts found on an ftp site,
> the word "mlitoinandu" appears. I wondered how a Lojban-speaker would know
> that this is intended to be one single lujvo: since the stressed syllable is
> the penultimate one, I would expect this word to fall apart into
> "mlitoi nandu" which is a tanru and so might have a distinct meaning from
> the meaning intended.

I'm not sure, but I think that was an error -- it should be
"mlitoirnandu".

> Actually, I would find it a much better solution if all the vowel-final
> rafsi were abandoned altogether. This can be done by eliminating all the
> rafsi for gismu, and only assign CVC type rafsi, and only to cmavo. The

I personally have only learned a few of the rafsi, and I generally
make lujvo with the 4-letter forms and -y-.  Not because I oppose
rafsi but just because it's too much to memorize.  I pick up more
of them as I go along.

This is the sort of thing that usage is likely to decide regardless
of LLG's wishes -- I bet rafsi that are not used productively or
in common words will become rare things that people have to look
up.  But certainly there's no problem with rafsi like "-gau" for
gasnu, "-pre" for prenu, etc.  They're short and convenient and
better than attatching the 4/5 letter form.


--
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 Chris Bogart        \  /  http://www.quetzal.com
 Boulder, CO          \/   cbogart@quetzal.com