l๏ кเ๒ץкคгภเ թє lค รєlթคђเ

zo ‹xoi› joi lo se srana be ri

3/24/2016

(to lo me ti ke kibykarni se ciska cu ci'ekle lo jbobau
.i .a'o lo nu go'i cu se jalge su xamgu toi)

.i zo ‹xoi›, noi bridi-zei-ra'abri cmavo ku'o, ca lo cabna cedra na to'e misno lo jbopre .i lo
go'i pu zenba je ba bo jdika lo ka pilno ce .i so'i nuncasnu pe zo ‹xoi› ba'o se gasnu ja se pagzu'e lo jbopre .i lo ka ce jinvi lo du lo nu su'o simsa be zo ‹xoi› cu pagbu lo jbobau cu sarcu ja vajni ca'o kaijbi lo ka kampu lo jbopre poi certu .i ku'i ma'a ba'o facki lo du ka'e na banzu fa tau zo ‹xoi› po'o .i je'u jetymlu fa lo du gaje na ku tau pa bridi-zei-ra'abri cmavo cu banzu gi ja'a ku lo nu ba'e vo mei cu sarcu lo nu lo jbobau cu vlipa tutci ro se srana vajni .i .e'e mi'o lanli lo tcini

.i ma smuni zo ‹xoi› pa mai .i «lu mi klama xoi ke'a cafne li'u» smudu'i «lu lo nu mi klama cu fasnu je cu cafne li'u» .i va'i zo ‹xoi› tutci tau lo nu lo re bridi cu jorne se'e lo pagbykampu sumti ku noi se sinxa zo ‹ke'a› .i ji'a ka'e viska lo nu zo ‹je› pagbu lo gapru xe fanva .i krinu fa lo nu zo ‹xoi› vajyki'i zo ‹je› .i vajni je voi mi .e'ende do lo ka morji ki

.i ta'o vajni fa lo nu djuno lo du lo jbobau pu tau zo ‹xoi› cu se pagbu no da poi ka'e pilno ki lo simsa .i zo ‹xoi› mutce lo ka vlipa .i ja sa'e zo ‹xoi› jai cumri'a lo nu lo pilno be ri cu vlipa so'o pu nu'o se kakne .i ku'i sai, lo nu zo ‹xoi› se jinzi tau zo ‹je› cu se jalge lo nu so'i tcini na mapti lo nu pilno zo ‹xoi› .i mu'a

ci prenu cu zvati

ci prenu cu zvati xoi mi na pu kanpe ki

.i smuni fa lo du ci da poi ke'a prenu zo'u lo nu da zvati cu fasnu je na pu se kanpe mi .i zo ‹xoi› panra zo ‹poi› .i ku'i ma panra zo ‹noi› .i da'i ta'i ma xusra lo se smuni be lo me zo ‹noi› moi .i to'u lo nu su drata cmavo cu zasti cu sarcu

.i zo ‹xoi› mapti so'e sumtcita poi ca'o zasti .i mapti zo ‹ri'a› je zo ‹pu› .i mapti zo ‹roi› je zo ‹va› .i ku'i tau zo ‹je› kampu ro lo me ru cmavo .i na ku ku'i ro sumtcita tai tarti .i mu'a zo ‹ka'e›

.i ja'o lo nu su'o vo da bridi-zei-ra'abri cmavo cu sarcu .i fi lo cnita [fa] mi ciska lo jufra poi jai nu mi skicu ro lo cnino cmavo

.i ro lo cmavo cmene pe lo basti be zo ‹xoi› cu voi mi kanpe lo nu ki zasni je nai vitno .i mi kanpe ja pacna lo nu cenba ja'e lo nu tordymau mu'a .i fi ke ra'u lo nu mupli cu pilno fa mi

zo ‹poi'a› joi zo ‹noi'a›

.i da'i zo ‹xoi› se basti zo ‹poi'a› fau lo nu lo panra be zo ‹noi› cu se basti zo ‹noi'a› .i .e'e ma'a catlu su mupli

.i so'e lo verba pu dansu poi'a naldra
.i so'e da poi menre lo verba zo'u lo nu da dansu pu fasnu je naldra

.i ku'i su'o lo verba pu dansu poi'a prane melbi
.i ku'i su'o da poi menre lo verba zo'u lo nu da dansu cu fasnu je cu prane melbi

.i so'e lo verba pu dansu noi'a naldra
.i so'e da poi menre lo verba pu dansu .i ro da poi menre lo verba je cu dansu zo'u lo nu da dansu pu naldra

.i so'i verba pu krixa noi'a fanza sai !
.i so'i da poi verba pu krixa .i ro da poi verba je pu krixa zo'u lo nu da krixa pu fanza sai

.i banli je'u .i xu ca cumki fa lo nu co'u pilno su sumtcita (to ka cumki ju xamgu toi) .i mo di'e

mi ka'e cadzu

.i xu smudu'i di'e

mi cadzu poi'a cumki

.i na go'i .i «lu mi ka'e cadzu li'u» na smud'i «lu lo nu mi cadzu cu fasnu je cu cumki li'u» .i smudu'i «lu lo nu mi cadzu cu cumki li'u» .i sarcu fa lo nu zo ‹fasnu› na pagbu .i so'o sumtcita cu simsa zo ‹ka'e› lo ka zo ‹poi'a› ja lo simsa na mapti .i lo nu go'i cu krinu je mukti tau zo ‹soi'a›

zo ‹soi'a›

.i zo ‹soi'a› simsa zo ‹poi'a› je ku'i cu frica fi lo vajni .i zo ‹soi'a› zo'u, lo ralju bridi na jai se xusra fai lo ka jetnu .i lo ralju bridi co'a sumti lo selbri pe zo ‹soi'a› .i tai mapti ke mu'a zo ‹ka'e› je zo ‹nu'o› .i mapti ke ji'a so'i brivla ku noi lo nu .adverbi pilno ki pu voi lo nu ki seltau ku po'o pu cumki tadji .i di'e mupli

soi'a lakne mi klama la .frànfur.
lo su'u mi klama la .frànfur. cu lakne

soi'a cumki mi snada
lo nu mi snada cu cumki
mi ka'e snada

.i su'a zo ‹soi'a› sko'opu lo pritu be ri .i ko simkarbi

pa lo va prenu soi'a se pacna ba speni mi

soi'a se pacna pa lo va prenu ba speni mi

.i ma smuni lo pa moi .i ma smuni lo re moi .i lo pa moi zo'u, zo ‹pa› sko'opu zo ‹soi'a› .i lo re moi zo'u, fatne .i frica fi lo vajni

pa lo va prenu soi'a se pacna ba speni mi
pa da poi ki menre lo va prenu zo'u lo nu da ba speni mi cu se pacna

soi'a se pacna pa lo va prenu ba speni mi
lo nu pa da poi ki menre lo va prenu zo'u da ba speni mi cu se pacna

.i ja'o lo pa moi zo'u lo du mo'oi kau lo prenu cu jai se pacna fai lo ka speni cu se djuno .i je lo re moi zo'u lo du mo'oi kau prenu cu speni na vajni .i vajni fa ke po'o lo du su pa lo prenu ba speni

zo ‹soi'a› do plixau soi'a voi mi nupre

zo ‹soi›

.i zo ‹soi› na to'e misno .i ku'i pe'i lo nu za'u re'u ciksi cu xamgu .i mi pu milxe lo ka cenba lo ka jinvi ma kau zo ‹soi› .i menre lo krinu fa lo nu ca ku zo ‹soi› na ro mei lo srana cmavo .i lo nu pilno zo ‹soi› ro da pu co'u sarcu .i cumri'a lo nu jdikygau zo ‹soi› lo ka tutci xo kau da kei je cu satcyzengau zo ‹soi›

.i to'u zo ‹soi› co'u ckini zo ‹je› je co'a panra zo ‹noi› .i simsa zo ‹noi'a› je ku'i ro roi sko'opu pi ro lo bridi

ta ponse no zdani, soi jalge ki fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra
ta ponse no zdani .i jalge lo nu go'i kei fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra

.i ma te frica zo ‹soi› zo ‹.i› .i so'o da go'i .i ra'u lo jufpau pe zo ‹soi› ka'e midju lo jufra .i ro di'e drani je cu smudu'i lo pa moi

soi jalge ki fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra se'u ta ponse no zdani

ta soi jalge ki fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra cu ponse no zdani

ta ponse soi jalge ki fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra se'u no zdani

ta ponse no zdani soi jalge ki fa lo nu mutce lenku ca lo dunra

.i va'i zo ‹soi› simsa zo ‹sei› lo ka no da ka'e sko'opu ce .i zo ‹soi› ra'abri lo ba'e mulno bridi .i ku'i lo gerna pe zo ‹soi› zo'u, dunli zo ‹xoi› .i di'e drata mupli je cu voi mi pacna lo nu ki zabna:

su prenu, soi ki nunkusru, cu xusra lo du ro jbopre cu lazni

mi fliba lo se troci, soi ki mabla

ca lo cerni mi gunka ze'a lo cacra be li so'i, soi lo nu ma kau ni frili pu spaji mi se'u, lo ka favgau lo cfika

ra pu se darxi pa drata verba, soi ra .aidji lo ka jungau lo mamta ki

zo ‹poi'o'a› joi zo ‹noi'o'a›

.i mi na birti lo du xu kau sarcu fa tau zo ‹poi'o'a› joi zo ‹noi'o'a› .i birti lo du plixau .i na birti lo du xu kau lo nu ma kau ni plixau cu banzu lo nu .inda tau su cnino cmavo .i .y ku'i —sei mi lo nu do kucli cu kanpe se'u— zo ‹poi'o'a› ba'e mo .i .ai mi ciksi

.i lo glibau zo'u su da .adverbi klesi je cu se mupli zoi gi. She left the room angrily. .gi .i ma smuni .i na ku lo nu cliva cu fengu .i lo pa moi pe lo sumti cu fengu .i pe'i di'e mapti

ra pu cliva lo kumfa fau lo nu vo'a fengu

.i ku'i ma smuni zo ‹fau› mi .i zo ‹fau› zo'u «lu broda fau ko'a li'u» smudu'i «lu fasnu fa lo gunma be lo nu broda joi ko'a li'u» .i pe'i mapti .i ja'o «lu fau lo nu vo'a broda li'u» jai banzu tau lo mupli poi simsa lo gapru mupli pe lo glibau .i ku'i da'i fanza fa lo nu so'i roi skuna .i gunma su'oi ze slaka .i lo nu tordu cmavo cu fanta da'i lo nu clanydu'e

ra pu cliva lo kumfa poi'o'a fengu

.i da'i do pensku «lu zo ‹poi'o'a› to'e mutce lo ka tordymau .i ma prali li'u» .i ku'i ko morji lo du ro lo cmavo poi mi casnu ki ca'o cu voi mi platu lo nu lo cmene be ki cu zasni je nai vitno .i ke'u mi krici lo du nalxada fa lo nu so'e lo cmavo pe zo ‹xoi› ba pavyslaka cmavo

mu da denpa poi'o'a xagji

poi'o'a xagji mu da denpa

.i fi ma frica .i xu zo ‹poi'o'a› ka'e sko'opu .i panra «lu fau lo nu vo'a xagji li'u» .i li'a zo ‹fau› ka'e sko'opu .i ku'i tau zo ‹vo'a› rinka lo nu lo du ma kau smuni lo sumsmi pe zo ‹fau› cu jalge lo du ma kau se krati zo ‹vo'a› .i va'i ru'e zo ‹poi'o'a› cupra lo cnino selbri .i lo ci cnita jufra cu simxu lo ka smudu'i

mu da denpa fau lo nu da xagji

fau lo nu da xagji kei mu da denpa

mu da zo'u da denpa fau lo nu da xagji

.i ja'o zo ‹poi'o'a› je zo ‹noi'o'a› na sko'opu je ku'i cu simsa «lo'u je voi le'u» lo ka galfi lo selbri tai ma kau .i .a'o na sarcu fa lo nu ciksi lo du ma kau te frica zo ‹poi'o'a› zo ‹noi'o'a› .i frica fi lo voi zo ‹poi'a› zo ‹noi'a› ki frica

lo gerna pe ma'oi POIhA

.i mi ze'a pu tavla fi lo smuni be ma'oi POIhA .i .ai ca ku mi tavla fi lo gerna .i su'o re da voi lo nu ki javni cu cumki je xamgu da'i .i ga ja zo ‹poi'a› lidne lo mulno bridi gi zo ‹poi'a› lidne lo selbri

adverbial <- POIhA_clause subsentence SEhU_elidible

adverbial <- POIhA_clause selbri SEhU_elidible

(to tolju'i lo zifma'o toi)

.i va'o lo nu cuxna lo pa moi zo'u, gaje ka'e kufra jmina lo nenri sumti (to mu'a «lu poi'a ki zukmu'i mi lo ka sidju li'u» toi) gi ku'i ta'e jai sarcu fa lo famyma'o ja zo ‹ki› .i va'o lo nu cuxna lo re moi zo'u, simsa zo ‹lo› ja'e gaje lo nu gaje lo famyma'o gi zo ‹ki› na jai sarcu fai lo ka skuna ki (to mu'a «lu poi'a cafne li'u» toi) gi ku'i lo nu zo ‹be› su roi jai sarcu (to mu'a «lu poi'a rinka be lo nu carvi li'u» toi)

.i mi kanpe lo nu lo re moi ki'u lo nu cafne cu xamgymau .i va'o na sarcu fa lo nu ro roi jmina lo famyma'o ja zo ‹ki› .i ta'o mi lo du zo ‹se'u› ji kau su drata cu xagrai famyma'o na djuno .i cumki fa lo nu zo ‹fe'u› maptymau

.i da'i pa lo re gapru javni cu se pilno .i ma bavla'i .i xu la .advèrbi'al. cu gerna dunli zo ‹xoi› .i ju'o nai xagmau fa lo nu na go'i .i mi pensi lo simsa be di'e

mi soi'a na'e lakne se'u klama la .rèn. je soi'a se platu se'u klama la .frànfur.
gaje lo nu mi klama la .rèn. cu na'e lakne gi lo nu mi klama la .frànfur. cu se platu

.i di'u na'e jai cumki va'o tau lo fadni gerna pe zo ‹xoi› .i lo me zo ‹xoi› moi cu se jalge lo nu lo .adverbi cu sepli lo selbri, soi jalge ki fa lo na'e smudra jufra .i xu ku'i lo mupli cu jai rinka lo nu do pensi zo ‹fi'o› .i mi zo'u, ja'a jai pensyri'a mi zo ‹fi'o› .i di'e zo'u javni tau zo ‹fi'o›

tense_modal <- ... / FIhO_clause free* selbri FEhU_elidible free* / ...

.i ji'a ma'a djuno lo du ka'e skuna «lu fi'o broda fe'u brodo je cu fi'o brode fe'u brodu li'u» .i ba'e mutce lo ka simsa ! .i da'i ro di'e voi ka'e skuna ki, soi ki vajni:

lo broda cu poi'a brode fe'u brodi

lo poi'a broda fe'u brode

.i xamgu .i ku'i na prane .i su da nabmi .i nabmi fa lo nu zo ‹fi'o› cupra lo sumtcita noi ... da'i tcita lo sumti .i lo nu tcita lo sumti na se srana ja mapti ma'oi POIhA .i si'a «lu poi'a broda gi brode gi brodi li'u» na plixau ja smudra .i ja'o ma'oi POIhA to'e ki'u nai lo nunsimsytce na ka'e mintu ma'oi FIhO .i ku'i mo'oi selma'o cu mapti da'i .i je'u soi'a .emje, no da pe lo jbobau cu banzu simsa ma'oi POIhA poi mi jinvi lo du ki traji lo ka plixau .i da'i mi stidi tau di'e

adverbial <- POIhA_clause free* selbri FEhU_elidible

term_1 <- sumti / ( !gek (tag / FA_clause free*) (sumti / KU_elidible free*) ) / nonabs_termset / NA_clause KU_clause free* / adverbial

selbri_1 <- selbri_2 / NA_clause free* selbri / adverbial selbri

POIhA_clause <- POIhA_pre POIhA_post
POIhA_pre <- pre_clause POIhA spaces?
POIhA_post <- post_clause

POIhA = &cmavo ( p o i h o h a / n o i h o h a / p o i h a / n o i h a / s o i h a ) &post_word

(to pe'i xagmau fa lo nu zo ‹soi› stali tau ma'oi XOI .i ji'i ro roi plixau fa lo nu mulno bridi toi)

.i da'i banli .i ku'i ĭa na cumki .i ga ja mi djica du'e da pe ma'oi POIhI gi do djuno lo du ta'i ma kau finti lo mapti gerna .i ko mi jungau lo du do ma kau si'onsi .i pe'i vajni fa lo nu lo simsa be «lu lo broda cu poi'a brode fe'u brodi li'u» ja «lu lo poi'a broda fe'u brode li'u» cu gendra .i ralju nabmi fa lo nu lo gapru gerna zo'u .ambigu fa «lu poi'a broda fe'u brode li'u» .i zo ‹cu› ma zvati .i na ka'e fanta lo nu «lu poi'a broda fe'u li'u» pagbu lo selbri .i xlali li'a .i .a'o do si'onsi su zabna

turbaro gredile

.i cnita fa so'o turbaro gredile .i ro vajni ke nunsko'opu klesi cu voi lo gredile cu ĭa jai nu skicu ki

KONSTANTA
ko'a broda poi'a brodo	lo nu ko'a broda cu fasnu gi'e brodo
ko'a broda noi'a brodo	lo nu ko'a broda cu fasnu .i lo go'i cu brodo
ko'a broda soi'a brodo	lo nu ko'a broda cu brodo
ko'a broda soi ki brodo	ko'a broda .i lo nu go'i cu brodo

KU'ANTORA
PA da broda poi'a brodo	PA da zo'u lo nu da broda cu fasnu gi'e brodo
poi'a brodo PA da broda	lo nu PA da broda cu fasnu gi'e brodo
PA da broda noi'a brodo	PA da broda .i ro da poi go'i zo'u lo nu da broda cu brodo
noi'a brodo PA da broda	lo nu PA da broda cu fasnu .i lo go'i cu brodo
PA da broda soi'a brodo	PA da zo'u lo nu da broda cu brodo
soi'a brodo PA da broda	lo nu PA da broda cu brodo
PA da broda soi ki brodo	PA da broda .i lo nu go'i cu brodo
soi ki brodo se'u PA da broda	PA da broda .i lo nu go'i cu brodo

NA KU
na ku ko'a broda poi'a brodo	na ku lo nu ko'a broda cu fasnu gi'e brodo
poi'a brodo na ku ko'a broda	lo nu na ku ko'a broda cu fasnu gi'e brodo
na ku ko'a broda noi'a brodo	na ku lo nu ko'a broda cu fasnu .i lo go'i cu brodo
noi'a brodo na ku ko'a broda	lo nu na ku ko'a broda cu fasnu .i lo go'i cu brodo
na ku ko'a broda soi'a brodo	na ku lo nu ko'a broda cu brodo
soi'a brodo na ku ko'a broda	lo nu na ku ko'a broda cu brodo
na ku ko'a broda soi ki brodo	na ku ko'a broda .i lo nu go'i cu brodo
soi ki brodo se'u na ku ko'a broda	na ku ko'a broda .i lo nu go'i cu brodo

ZO ‹POI'O'A› JOI ZO ‹NOI'O'A›
ko'a broda poi'o'a brodo	ko'a broda fau lo nu vo'a brodo
ko'a broda noi'o'a brodo	ko'a broda .i lo go'i cu brodo
PA da broda poi'o'a broda	PA da zo'u da broda fau lo nu da brodo
poi'o'a brodo PA da broda	PA da zo'u da broda fau lo nu da brodo
PA da broda noi'o'a broda	PA da zo'u da broda .i ro da poi go'i zo'u da broda fau lo nu da brodo
noi'o'a brodo PA da broda	PA da zo'u da broda .i ro da poi go'i zo'u da broda fau lo nu da brodo

.i .a'o ba casnu fa ma'a poi'a se jalge be so'i xamgu

3 Comments

Context-sensitive predicates

10/30/2015

2 Comments

For the purposes of this post, I will define context-sensitive predicates (CSP) as predicates whose meaning depends on the sentence they appear in. This is an experimental idea that hasn't been tried before in Lojban (or at all?).

Let's jump right in with a simple example:

mi ponse ro da poi mi djica lo nu mi ponse ke'a
"I own everything that is such that I desire that I own it."
or more colloquially "I own everything I want."

The important part for us is the repetition of [mi ponse ke'a] and the connection of the two repetitions with a predicate, in this case djica. A perfect candidate for the use of a CSP.

mi ponse ro [da poi mi djica lo nu mi ponse ke'a]

The entire part in square brackets can be turned into a CSP, with the underlined selbri being the only really defining bit of the CSP, and that defining bit could be called the interface.

The CSP would be defined something like this:

x1 is something such that I desire that I main-selbri it

Let's call this predicate broda (a single brivla). We can use our new broda to drastically shorten the sentence we started out with:

mi ponse ro broda
"I own everything that is such that I desire that I own it."
or more colloquially "I own everything I want."

Wow! Wait, really?

Really.

Now, realistically, a CSP like that would get an x2 place so that the predicate could also be applied to other desirers. (So it would become "x1 is something such that x2 desires that they main-selbri it".)

What else can be said about CSP?

Being context-sensitive, a CSP requires a host-sentence to be meaningful. It cannot be used as the main selbri, a case which is to be defined as undefined if not ill-formed. A sentence like

lo karce cu broda

is difficult to interpret. The internal reference to a main selbri cannot be made, as there is no higher selbri to point to, except the CSP itself. Perhaps a sentence like this could still be argued to carry some meaning, however, despite being anomalous.

Now that we've established the workings of CSP, let's think of some good things to do with them.

One potentially useful CSP might be:

x1 is such that I know, but you don't know, that they main-selbri.

This might not seem very special, but it and the many possible variations of it can accomplish a lot in terms of discursive subtlety:

su'o brode pu vitke ca lo cabdei
"Someone came by today, I know who came by, but you don't know."

In very few words this sentence conveys subtle but useful information to the listener that gives them an idea of the degree of knowledge about the identity of visitor(s) and to what degree that knowledge is shared between speaker and listener. Various similar CSP seem natural.

One of the main advantages of CSP is the extreme amount of information that can be encoded, while they can still be defined broadly enough to be applicable often.

CSP are closely related to jai, in that they encode specific versions of jai, or of the part that jai makes implicit.

mi ponse ro jai se djica [be fai lo ka mi no'a ce'u]

mi ponse ro broda

The possibilities of CSP seem endless. Any commonly used jai+fai pattern lends itself to being turned into a CSP, but one could go so much further.

What useful CSP can you think of?

2 Comments

Making {ra} and {ru} useful

9/9/2015

0 Comments

Of the three cmavo ri, ra and ru, the latter two have always fallen somewhat by the wayside in terms of usage. On the one hand they are too vague, on the other hand they aren't vague enough. Traditionally these cmavo all involve back-counting, with certain exceptions what should be skipped when back-counting to identify the antecedent, making them hard to use in speech, but also required no other distracting sumti to be in the way to mess up the counting. In short, ra and ru aren't very reliable as defined. That's probably why the lerfu pronouns have become so popular, though they have problems as well of course. ra and ru are too vague in that they can refer to anything that counts as a sumti, independent of what it is, and they are not vague enough in that their referents have to have been previously mentioned, recently enough to be reached by back-counting or at least guessing correctly.

Here I'd like to propose a way to make both cmavo more useful.

Following the above argumentation, I think to get a useful ra and ru we'd need to do the following:

Get rid of anything having to do with counting
Give them a purpose in an area in which Lojban is currently lacking

The least extreme way to do this would be to keep ra and ru pronouns, but to give them a new meaning. One area that Lojban is lacking is third person pronouns; it has plenty of 1st and 2nd person pronouns, but nothing that really works like "he/she/it/they". This practically forces people to elide the sumti altogether, because there wouldn't be anything better to put there anyway. But it also deterred me repeatedly from writing songs in a predominantly 3rd person perspective.

Thus, I propose the following:

Make ru a third person pronoun that refers to something in the present context, excluding the things other pronouns could refer to (this is to make it maximally expressive). Consider the two meanings of zo'e, which means both "the salient thing(s)" and "I don't know or don't care what fillls this sumti place". ru would only have the first meaning, roughly corresponding to "it/that/this".
Make ra a third person pronoun that refers anaphorically to a person or people, corresponding to "he/she/they".

0 Comments

NA as tag re-visited

7/15/2015

8 Comments

Quite a while ago (3 years!?) I wrote an article about NA acting as a tag and even though I had discarded the idea back then it reappeared recently, both in ctefaho's attempts at formalizing Lojban's tags and in gleki's altatufa parser. Now seems as good a time as any to add my own ideas to the mix before they won't get heard anymore.

8 Comments

Which/what - A new gadri

5/21/2015

24 Comments

"Which door would your brother say is the door that leads to freedom?"

Clever, but how would a Lojbanist say this when standing in front of two Lojbani brothers, one the liar, one the truth-teller?

First, let's recap how the question word ma (as well as all the other question words) behave.
ma always has top-scope, no matter how deeply nested it appears in a sentence. (1) and (2) are equivalent:

(1) do djica lo nu mi zukte ma
"You want me to do what?"
"What do you want me to do?"

(2) ma poi'i do djica lo nu mi zukte ke'a
"What is such that you want me to do it?"
"What is it you want me to do?"

However, if we wish to restrict the referent pool of the question word, the familiar method of using poi (as in (3)) may not be semantically accurate -- the desired expansion of (3) is (4), but the actual meaning is (5). The difference might be subtle and difficult to spot, but it's there, and it means that we should find a new way to say "which/what".

(3) do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna ma poi taxfu

(4) ma taxfu gi'e poi'i do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna ke'a

(5) ma poi'i do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna ke'a poi taxfu
ma poi'i do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna lo me ke'a je taxfu

One option might be to use noi instead of poi (as in (6)), another would be to use mo (as in (7)).

(6) do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna ma noi taxfu

(7) do pu kanpe lo nu mi cuxna lo mo taxfu
"What kind of clothes did you expect me to choose?"
"[The] what-clothes did you expect me to choose?"

Both methods leave something to be desired. Even if noi has the right semantics, it still requires a terminator and a ke'a, while using mo can be vague (since it's a tanru) and it can be awkward to use.

Therefore, I propose a new gadri X (in selma'o LO) that has the semantics of (4) but keeps the wh in-situ capability of (3). In other words, ko'a broda X brode is defined as ma brode gi'e poi'i ko'a broda ke'a.

It remains to be decided how that new gadri should be spelled. I will use mo'oi for now:

(8) mo'oi prenu pu gunta do
"Which person attacked you?"
"Who attacked you?"

(9) do djica lo nu mi tcidu fi mo'oi cukta
"You want me to read which/what book(s)?"
"What book(s) do you want me to read?"

(10) .oi sai mo'oi me do pu spofygau lo mi X-zei-tanxe doi malpre
"Dammit, which one of you assholes broke my Xbox?!"

(11) ko na jungau la gleki lo du'u mi mo'oi kau uitki papri ca'o cnegau
"Don't tell Gleki which wiki pages I'm changing."

(12) na vajni fa lo du'u mo'oi kau me ma'a cu pa moi klama
"It doesn't matter which one of us goes first."

(13) lo bruna be do cu da'i xusra lo du'u mo'oi vorme cu pluta tu'a lo ka zifre
"Which door would your brother say is the door that leads to freedom?"

What do you think?

24 Comments

Ghost Consonants

6/23/2014

8 Comments

What are Ghost Consonants?

When making fu'ivla (stage 4), we need to make sure that our words have a consonant cluster near the beginning, Many source words which we'd like to borrow don't contain clusters, however, so we need to add consonants to more or less artificially (and I don't mean that in a bad way) create clusters. There are two reasons why it's desirable to not just use any consonant at random, but to follow certain conventions.

1. Aesthetics.
   The more similar the ghost consonant is to its "host", the less distracting it is in the overall perception of the word.

2. Reconstructibility and Predictability
    A regular set of ghost consonants is especially important for systematic translations of larger typological systems, like the Tree of Life. If the same set of convention is used for every Linnaean name, then someone who learns the Lojban word has a reasonable chance of knowing what the original Linnaean form is, which means less relearning for a Lojbanist who already knows all the names in Lojban, but not in "Latin". It can also prevent arguments as to what the Lojban form of a Linnaean name should be.

I based the assigments partly on my own preference and partly on what I've observed in the current Lexicon: interestingly, a lot of these ghost consonants have already made it into a lot of fu'ivla. Here are some examples:

wiki -> ŭitki
Sakura (cherry tree) -> tsakura
Koala -> ckoŭala
Cyrillic -> kilrili
Linnaean -> lilneĭa

Unlike some of the older ghost consonant sets I've written about, this one never requires letters of the source word to switch places to create clusters (petula -> eptula), so it's more predictable and simpler.
With an agreed upon set of conventions in place, we can go ahead and                                                              translate the Tree of Life into Lojban.

8 Comments

How to substantially simplify the Lojban connective system

3/18/2014

11 Comments

"How does one say "and" in Lojban?"
"Well... it depends, you know. For sumti, it's {.e}. For tanru and sentences, it's {je}. For bridi tails it is {gi'e}. Forethought is {ge} or {gu'e}, and for relative clauses it's {zi'e}."

Yes, there are six words in total just for logical "and". And you have to learn which one to use when. Multiply this by four for all the four logical functions (AND, OR, IFF, WHETHER-OR-NOT) to get 24, but minus 3 because {zi'e} has no equivalent for the other functions (another exception!), and then plus 5 for the connective questions, yielding 26 or so.

But that's not all. If we look at non-logical connectives as well, then we'll find that we can't make bridi tail connectives or tanru forethoughts with them. Also, while we do have the option to use them in forethought like {ge}, we do that by saying {JOI gi}, so it's again a new rule to learn compared to the logical connectives.

So in short, there are two major shortcomings:

1. There are too many connectives.
2. The paradigm has actual holes. We can't make non-logical bridi tail connections, and we can't make non-logical tanru forethoughts.

Here I will present a way to reduce the number of afterthought connectives down to a single set of 4 basic ones + 1 question word, by removing both selma'o A and selma'o GIhA and letting JA do all the work, and then making logical and non-logical connectives work the same way by removing selma'o GA and GUhA.

After we're done, the only rule we will need to learn is the following:

"You can use any connective you want to connect anything you want, as long as both things match."

Here is a list of things you will be able to connect with any connective you want:

sumti + sumti
tanru-unit + tanru-unit
sentence + sentence
bridi-tail + bridi-tail
number string + number string
connective + connective (this is mostly useful for our beloved mekso)
abstractor + abstractor
sumtcita + sumtcita
non-sumti term + non-sumti term
termset + termset
relative clause + relative clause
...

All of these connections are available both in forethought and in afterthought.

For afterthought, you simply use the connective as you would expect, e.g.

    mi je lo pendo
    "I and a friend".

To set forethought more clearly apart from afterthought, we will use a new forethought marker that goes in front of the connective. For anything other than tanru forethought, that marker will be {ga}, and for tanru it will be {gu}. That way, as soon as we see {ga} or {gu} we immediately know that we're dealing with a forethought connection, and when we see a bare {jV}, we know it's afterthought. This aids human parsing. For example:

    gaje lo mlatu gi lo gerku
    "both cats and dogs"

    gaseju do tugni gi mi zukte .ai
    "Whether or not you agree, I am going to do it."

We also need only a single question word now, which will be {ji}, while {je'i}, {gi'i}, {ge'i}, {gu'i} can all go out the window!

How GIhA can be eliminated

To make JA be able to join bridi-tails, all that is necessary is to reconceive {cu} as a bridi-tail starter (which some people would probably agree is already what it does), and once that idea is in place, the rest follows quite naturally. The general rule that we can connect any two matching units applies, and that includes bridi-tails: {<bridi-tail> JA <bridi-tail>}. Here's an exampe:

    mi [(cu) prami do] je [cu djica lo nu mi'o ze'u kansi'u]
    "I [love you] and [want us to be together for a long time]."

The first {cu} is always elidible. I included it just to show the parallel structure, and how {cu} functions as a bridi-tail starter. There are situations where even the second {cu} is elidible and this is actually one of them. We could have written:

    mi prami do je djica lo nu mi'o ze'u kansi'u
    "I love you and want us to be together for a long time."

This works because {je} knows that it's supposed to connect two matching units. To the left it sees a sumti, to the right it sees a selbri, and the only way that is possible is if the selbri belongs to a separate bridi-tail. This is very much like knowing when {be'o} or {ge'u} can or can't be elided. Other situations where {cu} is always elidible is when the second bridi tail begins with a tense, or BAI, or negation, e.g.:

    lo tadni cu tatpi je na tinju'i lo ctuca
    "The students were tired and didn't listen to the teacher."

    mi pu citka je ba cliva
    "I ate and will leave."

Just make sure to not elide {cu} when you shouldn't, like this:

    mi citka je viska do
    "I eat and see you." (meaning that I actually eat you)

You can always be on the safe side by never eliding {cu} after {je}, just like you can always be on the safe side by never eliding {ku} before {.e} (as in {lo broda (be ko'a) KU .e lo brode}, where the {ku} will be safe with and without the {be ko'a}). I'm only stressing this so much to show that there is nothing unusual going on with {je} + bridi-tail.

How this compares to the current system in terms of simplicity and regularity

I have shown that it's both possible and practical to eliminate both A and GIhA entirely and to fuse logical and non-logical connectives into one coherent paradigm. Here is a brief summary, using AND as the example connective.

Current system:
Afterthought for sumti:                                          X .e Y
Afterthought for tanru or sentences:                       X je Y
Afterthought for bridi-tails with logical connectives: X gi'e Y
Afterthought for bridi-tails with non-logical conn.:   NOT POSSIBLE
Forethought for logical connectives:                     ge X gi Y
Forethought for non-logical connectives:                JOI gi X gi Y
Forethought for tanru with logical connectives:       gu'e X gi Y
Forethought for tanru with non-logical conn.:         NOT POSSIBLE
Afterthought for relative clauses                          X zi'e Y (but only exists with AND, not with the other ones)
Forethought for relative clauses                          NOT POSSIBLE

Simplified system:
Any afterthought:        X je Y
Any non-tanru forethought: gaje X gi Y
Tanru forethought:      guje X gi Y

That's it, for any matching X and Y!

'nuff said.

11 Comments

Discourse-sensitive {zo'e} and {zi'o}

2/14/2014

6 Comments

This is another idea I had a few nights ago. According to the CLL, all ommited sumti places are filled with {zo'e} (leaving aside {ka}-abstractions).

A number of people like the idea of treating elided places as being {zo'e} or {zi'o} (the earliest proposal I can remember being by And Rosta). I like the idea, but I would go a step further, or rather, I'd like to make things a bit more dependent on the current discourse. What's the problem with having all omitted places be {zo'e}? Well, it fills in values in places we might not even want to fill. This is especially true for bloated gismu, but in general it can be "unclean".

I propose the following procedure for determining what fills an omitted place:

1. At the start of discourse, all places are filled with {zi'o}. {mi citka} as the first sentence of discourse (or a conversation) means {mi citka zi'o}, "I am eating." The difference is that {mi citka zo'e} could mean "I am eating cereal", but {mi citka zi'o} is true no matter what I eat. In this regard, {zi'o} is like a {su'o da} without scope. In another way it's like {ro da}: {ro da zo'u: ga nai mi citka da gi mi citka zi'o}. The important point is that {zi'o} is more general than {zo'e}, and is therefore the better default value for neutral contexts.
2. Once a place of a predicate has been filled, that place will afterwards be filled with {zo'e}. As the first {citka}-sentence of a given discourse, {mi na citka} means "I'm not eating anything." ({mi na citka zi'o}). Once someone says {mi citka lo nanba}, {mi na citka} will be {mi na citka zo'e}, and can (but needn't) be interpreted as "I'm not eating bread".
3. Under certain circumstances, a place can be reset to {zi'o}. Presumably, anytime a place gets filled with a non-{zo'e} non-{zi'o} value, it reverts back to {zi'o} after the sentence ends. I.e. {da}, {ce'u} and possibly {ke'a} reset their places to {zi'o} afterwards.

This flexible procedure makes {zi'o} and {zo'e} behave more intelligently, and allows us to be general more easily when it is more likely to be desired, while making us be explicit a little more often when we actually mean specific things. This will be facilitated by the new anaphora system which we will surely have to adopt sooner or later. (I'm sort of cooking one up at the moment)

6 Comments

Let's look at scope again

2/14/2014

2 Comments

Here is a sentence that was uttered on IRC today:

     i sei mi se xanri da citka lo cirlrbri gi'e kakne lo ka cusku zo cirlrbri po'o ri'a lo nu lo cirla cu snipa lo tance

The intended meaning was that, because someone had Brie cheese sticking to their tongue, they could only say the word "cirlrbri". Reading the English, you will likely think it's unambiguous, but it's not. We just simply understand it the way it makes the most sense to us. Lojban is different. We have to say it exactly how it is meant, or the scope will change the meaning into something else.

What the Lojban sentence actually means is:

"Someone eats Brie cheese and [is able to [say nothing but "cirlrbri" caused by cheese sticking to their tongue]]"

In other words, the person has the ability to [say only the word "cirlrbri"], which is quite differerent from "cirlrbri" being the only word they can say. Additionally, with the ri'a, we get the even more different meaning that the word "cirlrbri" is the only word for which the cheese sticking to the tongue is a cause of uttering it. Look at it in isolation:

     mi cusku zo broda po'o ri'a lo nu bebna
     "Only the word "broda" is uttered by me because of stupidity." (other words I utter are uttered because of other things)

So the correct order of things is to place ri'a before po'o:

     mi ri'a lo nu bebna cu cusku zo broda po'o
     "Because of stupidity, I only say "broda."

Okay, but in the original sentence, we had all this stuck in an abstraction. This changes things again.

     mi kakne lo ka ce'u ri'a lo nu bebna cu cusku zo broda po'o
     "I am able to do the following: because of stupidity, I only say "broda."

I split the English translation to make the scope very explicit. Having the ability to say only "broda" is not the same as "broda" being the only word you can say. This means that po'o must be moved outside the abstraction to fix the scope. The same is true for ri'a, because if we only move out po'o, then ri'a is no longer the cause of the po'o. The only way to do this is by using jai:

     ri'a lo nu bebna kei zo broda po'o jai se kakne mi fai lo ka cusku
     "Because of stupidity, "broda" is the only word such that I can say it."

Now we are getting to the intended meaning! But wait, the original sentence started that part with a gi'e, and we cannot just place gi'e before it:

    * citka lo cirlrbri gi'e ri'a lo nu bebna kei zo broda po'o jai se kakne mi fai lo ka cusku

This is not grammatical Lojban. Was all our work for nothing? Well, almost. We can resort to ckaji:

      citka lo cirlrbri gi'e ckaji lo ka ri'a lo nu bebna kei zo broda po'o jai se kakne ce'u fai lo ka cusku
     "Eats Brie and has the property that because of stupidity, "broda" is the only word such that they can say it."

Okaaayy... we got it.

With certain experimental ideas one could make this easier, but this is just official Lojban here. Oh, let's replace the bebna-stuff with the snipa-stuff:

      da citka lo cirlrbri gi'e ckaji lo ka ri'a lo nu lo cirla cu snipa lo tance kei zo cirlrbri po'o jai se kakne ce'u fai lo ka cusku
      "Eats Brie and has the property that because cheese sticks to the tongue, "cirlrbri" is the only word such that they can say it."

2 Comments

How to get rid of formal rafsi (lujvo/zi'evla merge)

2/14/2014

4 Comments

A few days ago, right before falling asleep, an idea occured to me that got me very excited. A way to get rid of formal rafsi altogether.

Why get rid of rafsi?

A lot of people have reported that they find it very difficult to learn all the rafsi. Some even say it's an impossible task for the average person. Other people just don't bother learning any rafsi because they see no practical value in it.

While I disagree with those who say that the rafsi cannot be mastered completely, I do agree with those who say that learning the rafsi is largely a waste of time. What is knowing rafsi good for? Knowing the rafsi, you can quickly identify the components a lujvo is made up of and guess the meaning. However, while this is clearly true, I still think that it's not a good argument in favor of learning (let alone having) rafsi for two reasons: 1) Most lujvo are irregular, so you can only guess so much about its meaning. 2) Why the hell should a speaker of a language have to guess words? It's completely ridiculous. If we look a bit ahead, to a time where the dictionary is 99% complete, then all the words we need already exist, and we simply *know* them, or if we don't, we look them up (or let someone explain their meaning to us like we would do in English). A word means what it means, it's not a guessing game. So I think learning a gigantic list of random-ish rafsi only to be able to take wild guesses at words that should simply be in the dictionary is a waste of time and energy.

The one place where rafsi do seem useful is in lujvo that follow a regular pattern. gau-lujvo, mau-lujvo and rai-lujvo are examples of such lujvo. For most broda, we can be quite sure what brodygau means, although it is just a convention. And that's the point: why do we need rafsi if we can just have conventions instead?

Okay, but how do we do it?

It turns out that it is very simple to get rid of formal rafsi completely. And what's more, it doesn't actually break past usage! How is this possible?

First of all, let me explain what I mean by "formal rafsi". Formal rafsi are what we have right now. If you look up a gismu, say, {canlu}, then you will be shown its two short rafsi: -cal- and -ca'u-. These two rafsi are assigned exclusively to {canlu}. If you see -ca'u- in a lujvo, it can only mean {canlu}, and not, say, {cadzu} or {catlu}. This is what it means to have formal rafsi.

Formal rafsi are not predictable from the shape of the gismu. There is no reason why -ca'u- belongs to {canlu} and not to {catlu}. Someone simply decided that should be the way it is, and they could equally have chosen any other mapping. In other words, our formal rafsi are random. And because of their randomness, they are hard to learn.

So, seeing how there is very little benefit to the formal rafsi, why not make a real job of it? We can simply go all the way and admit that it's impossible to have a truly systematic system of rafsi, and that lujvo are always going to just mean what they mean, irrespective of their rafsi. This is what I am proposing; in the following steps:

Step 1: Completely remove the concept of exclusive rafsi assignments from the language.

That's it, basically, but here is what it means for the language:

Every gismu now has a number of informal short rafsi, which are simply all its rafsi candidate forms. For example, {canlu} has -cau-, -ca'u-, -clu-, -cnu-, -cna-, and -cla-. When making lujvo, we simply pick any of the rafsi candidates that give the best (i.e. prettiest/shortest/easiest/...) lujvo. The rafsi components will now only give us a list of the possible source gismu. Therefore, a new data field will be added to the dictionary, which lists the source gismu. For now, we can use the notes field in jbovlaste.

For regular lujvo, instead of having formal rafsi, a set of conventions will be adopted. People will keep on using -gau exclusively to make regular gau-lujvo, or -mau- for mau-lujvo etc, but it will be based on a convention rather than on a static prescription.

What does this change? Turns out it doesn't change much at all, and that's the point. All the old lujvo still mean what they mean. New lujvo still mean what they are defined to mean. So nothing changes. What I'm trying to say is that doing away with formal rafsi means getting rid of a burden while keeping all the functional parts in tact. Lujvo making was already just a set of conventions, but with the added problem of shoving a long long list of rafsi in your face that you could just never get your head around. The useful conventions stay, the baggage goes. Isn't it a relief?

A possible continuation of the idea

There is one more thing.

As rafsi are now mere "suggestions" that the gismu give us, we will in certain cases decide that none of the rafsi candidates satisfy us. We will then go a step further and only use two letters of the gismu as their "rafsi", for example {karce} -> -ka-. The result will be a zi'evla, not a lujvo, from a strict morphological point of view. And indeed, getting rid of rafsi will blur the line between lujvo and zi'evla. I think that's a good thing, but you are free to stop at Step 1 if this part makes you uncomfortable.

My suggestion is to start out with lujvo shapes, and to zi'evla-ize them once the lujvo becomes very commonly used. Chopping off a few consonants gets rid of clusters and therefore makes the words easier to pronounce. Think {sorprekarce} [-> {sorprekra}] -> {sorpeka}. The same happened with {genturfa'i} -> {gentufa}. I find it good to allow such a development to happen freely. Let's be honest: {sorpeka} or {gentufa} let you guess its components just as easily (if you really wanted to guess), but you don't need to guess. You just learn the words once and then you know what they mean and what they are based on. I'm speaking from experience.

I'd even go one step further, but this step is more controversial. When a lujvo or zi'evla becomes substantially more common than a gismu, then we should consider giving it a gismu form (only after several months of high frequency usage). This way, only a handful of (officially approved) new gismu would emerge every year. Of course, the last two paragraphs are not required for the core idea of this post: Getting rid of formal rafsi for good.

The colors seem so bright now. No more being caged in by rafsi. Freedom strikes. Lojbanistan celebrates.

4 Comments

Proprietor Fronting

1/30/2014

2 Comments

This is a topic I've been carrying around with me for a while, but which I never got to write down, because it was too abstract in my mind. I knew what I wanted it to accomplish, but I didn't see an immediate way to get there until now.

First of all, what does proprietor fronting mean? Well, it's a term I made up for the concept of extracting part of a proposition and placing it before said proposition, which then turns into a property. Just keep reading.

Let's look at {djuno}: x1 knows that x2 (du'u) is true about x3

The x2 could be a property of the x3, but it would make it impossible to know what {mi djuno lo ka klama} means without also mentioning the x3 of djuno, which would be fine the x3 came first, but it doesn't. There is another gismu like that, which even uses a property, but has the proprietor coming after it, which is very annoying: {cpedu} x1 asks for action x2 (ka) from x3. For example:

     mi cpedu lo ka ce'u sidju mi kei lo pulji
     "I asked [to help me] from the police." (literally)

This order of arguments makes sense from the standpoint of wanting to make {cpedu} a gismu of the {cpacu}/{lebna} family, but can be annoying otherwise. Of course, {cpedu} might be a special case, since we often like to say (in English anyway) "I asked for help", in which case the x3 is irrelevant. Let's ignore {cpedu} for the time being and let us return to {djuno}.

It would make sense to have {djuno} be "x1 knows x2 to have property x3 (ka)", so that:

     mi djuno do lo ka jifyjunxu'a
     "I know that you are lying."

But that's not how {djuno} is defined. However, it shows exactly what proprietor fronting is. Proprietor fronting makes it possible to go from:

     lo du'u ko'a broda

to

     ko'a lo ka ce'u broda

in a systematic way, and optimally without performing any crazy operations on the selbri.

In current Lojban, the only word that does something similar to this is {jai}, but {jai} is not optimally equipped for this task, in my opinion. I've always considered {jai TAG} the more basic version of {jai}, with {jai broda} being the "odd" one out. Coupled with my dislike for SE-strings and {jai} being quite a lot like SE, I'm starting to wonder if {jai broda} should be removed. I don't exactly dislike {jai broda}, but I do dislike {se jai broda}, and it only gets worse with {se jai se broda}. To me, that's the opposite of an elegant construction. Another "problem" is that {jai} acts on the x1 by default. {tu'a} can act on any sumti you want without having to rearrange the entire selbri, just like proprietor fronting should be able to be used freely on any abstraction place.

With proprietor fronting, there would be no need for {djuno} to be redefined. And {djuno} isn't the only relevant gismu. The same things apply to dozens and dozens of other gismu, even ones without du'u-places but with nu-places (think for example {kanpe} or {pacna}). The method I've used until now was to make separate lujvo or zi'evla with the new place structure, e.g. {kairju'o} (or its zi'evla {ckajiju}) "x1 knows x2 to have property x3". But that would mean having to create an insane number of new, but systematically related, brivla. Why not introduce a new mechanism that can do the same by operating on the existing gismu?

I've known for a while now that I wanted to have such a mechanism. But how would it work?

Let's pretend for now that {djuno} is "x1 knows x2 (du'u)" and forget about the x3. We want to have a regular mechanism to make the following transformation:

     mi djuno lo du'u do badri   ->   mi djuno do lo ka badri

and equally:

     mi kanpe lo nu do klama    ->   mi kanpe do lo ka klama

I can see two possible ways to do this. I will list them using an experimental cmavo kai'a (in parallel universe Lojban, it would be {kai}).

Place {kai'a} before the first sumti. It will be treated as the proprietor of the following property abstraction.
Examples: mi djuno kai'a do lo ka badri
mi kanpe kai'a do lo ka klama
The two sumti can be moved around independently, as long as they remain in order. Example:
mi kai'a do kanpe lo ka klama
This could be both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Place {kai'a} between them like a connective. Here, the order wouldn't matter much, as long as there is one property connected with one proprietor.
Examples: mi djuno do kai'a lo ka badri
mi kanpe do kai'a lo ka klama
If {kai'a} works like a connective, then it won't be possible to move {do} in front of the selbri, which is a disadvantage. However, instead of making it a true JOI, it could be a long-distance connective, which placed after the first argument and connects it to the next sumti no matter how far away it is in the sentence, thereby being able to bridge across the selbri, and possibly even other intermittent sumti. This would be solution 2b:

   2b. Place {kai'a} right after the first sumti. {kai'a} acts as a long-distance "connective", connecting the first
                sumti to the next property on the right, skipping anything that isn't property, including selbri and other
                  sumti. 2b is compatible with 2.
                  Examples: mi do kai'a djuno lo ka badri
                                  mi do kai'a pu kanpe lo ka klama

                                  ko curmi mi kai'a ca lo nu mi ba'o lumci lo palta kei lo ka kelci lo kelskami
                                  "Allow me, after I have cleaned the plates, to play with the game console."

                                 no da kai'a lakne sei badri lo ka cinri mi == no da zo'u lo nu da mi cinri cu lakne (this example also shows how {jai} is just a very special case of what {kai'a} does)

                                 cfipu fa lo ctuca kai'a ro lo tadni lo ka so'i roi cenba lo ka casnu ma kau
                                 "The teacher annoys all the students by frequently switching subjects."

This shall suffice to present the general idea behind proprietor fronting. Chances are that by now you know whether or not you like it. I would prefer not to make up an experimental cmavo, as I dislike their shape, but what other options are there, really. ;)

If only {kai} were free...

2 Comments

Parallel Universe Lojban

1/29/2014

4 Comments

This is a What-If. I will go through all the cmavo and selma'o and simplify, reduce, delete, replace and switch cmavo.

Current Selma'o:
A BAI BAhE BE BEI BEhO BIhE BIhI BO BOI BU BY CAI CAhA CEI CEhE CO COI CU CUhE DAhO DOI DOhU FA FAhA FAhO FEhE FEhU FIhO FOI FUhA FUhE FUhO GA GAhO GEhU GI GIhA GOI GOhA GUhA I JA JAI JOI JOhI KE KEI KEhE KI KOhA KU KUhE KUhO LA LAU LAhE LE LEhU LI LIhU LOhO LOhU LU LUhU MAI MAhO ME MEhU MOI MOhE MOhI NA NAI NAhE NAhE+BO NAhU NIhE NIhO NOI NU NUhA NUhI NUhU PA PEhE PEhO PU RAhO ROI SA SE SEI SEhU SI SOI SU TAhE TEI TEhU TO TOI TUhE TUhU UI VA VAU VEI VEhA VEhO VIhA VUhO XI Y ZAhO ZEI ZEhA ZI ZIhE ZO ZOI ZOhU

Deleted Selma'o:
A BAI BIhE BIhI CAI CAhA CEhE CUhE DAhO DOI FAhA FOI GA GAhO GI GIhA GUhA JA JOI JOhI KI LE LA LAU LAhE NAI NAhE+BO NIhO PEhE RAhO SA SE SOI SU TAhE TEI VA VIhA ZAhO ZEhA ZI

All the remaining Selma'o (see below) remain as they are.

Unaltered Selma'o:
BAhE BE BEI BEhO BO BOI BU BY CEI CO COI CU DOhU FA FAhO

Next, some Selma'o will be added back in, but they might undergo some grammar changes, and lots of their members might get eliminated or altered.

BAI is completely eliminated. All of its members are deleted entirely. A new pseudo Selma'o KIhU will be added, containing only eight prepositions: ki'u, mu'i, ri'a, ni'i, ja'e, va'o, fau and tai. Because KIhU is grammatically identical to the tenses (PU), the two get merged.
BIhE is redundant to BO. Deleted forever.
A, BIhI, GA, GI, GIhA, GUhA, JA, JOI, JOhI: All of {A, BIhI, JOI, JOhI} are merged with JA. GIhA and GUhA removed in favor of JA + X compounds. All members of selma'o A deleted. {ji} moved to JA. {je'i} deleted.
CAI, NAI -> UI, all members retained, only the grammar gets merged.
Termsets involving NUhI, NUhU, CEhE, PEhE eliminated.
SA re-added as a new selma'o, whose grammar is that of a free modifier.
All prepositions (i.e. tenses) merged into PU.
New selma'o LO added to replace the old LE and LA. LO contains exactly two members: {lo} and {la}.
All other members of old LE are deleted.
LAhE reduced to TUhA = {tu'a}.
New SOI with grammar similar to SEI, but allowing bridi tails.
.a .e .o .u become interjections, illocutionary operators or new members of selma'o I.
I and NIhO merged into a new I.

Unique cmavo replacements:

cu becomes su to enhance pronouncability.
ke'a switches places with ki

ce'u switches places with ce
du'u and du switched
jo'u becomes jau

Example sentence:
lo nanmu su djuno lo du mi jau lo pendo ku simxu lo ka ce ciska lo sanmi poi ce bregau ki sa citka

Other changes:

SE grammar changed to forbid more than one SE in a row. Switched place is pulled to the front, as with e.g. {to'ai}. lo ve klama be mi = "the route by which I go"

CV'VV cmavo banned. Useful experimental cmavo are re-assigned to the many now-free cmavo.

Freed up cmavo:
.a .e .o .u ba'i bai bau be'i ca'i cau ci'e ci'o ci'u cu'u de'i di'o do'e du'i du'o fa'e fi'e ga'a gau ja'i ji'e ji'o ji'u ka'a ka'i kai ki'i koi ku'u la'u le'a li'e ma'e ma'i mau me'a me'e mu'u pa'a pa'u pi'o po'i pu'a pu'e ra'a ra'i rai ri'i sau si'u ta'i ti'i ti'u tu'i va'u zau zu'e bi'e ce'e gi'a gi'e gi'i gi'o gi'u goi po po'e gu'a gu'e gu'i gu'o gu'u la'i lai la'e lu'a lu'e lu'i lu'o tu'a vu'i le le'e le'i lei lo'e lo'i loi voi pe'e (94 words in total)

4 Comments

Current Approach to lujvo place structures

1/25/2014

4 Comments

My current approach to defining new lujvo is this:

I try to find the two most pertinent root word concepts that fit the meaning of the lujvo. When these two are enough, I proceed with step 3, otherwise with step 2.
When two components are not enough, a third one will be considered, although here it is important that most if not all the components have short rafsi. I will rarely opt for a lujvo with more than 5 syllables. If I feel the components fit really well, but the word gets way too long, I sometimes trim the word by turning it into a zi'evla à la {sorpeka}/{nonseka}/{pincivi}. Other times I will decide to go back to just two components and give them a slightly more specialized meaning than one might expect.
Now that the word has its shape, I add a place structure. Unlike the old jvajvo approach of importing *all* the places from *all* the components, I make absolutely zero mechanical imports. Instead, I only add one, maybe two, places that I know are absolutely essential. Usually the usefulness of the more remote places is very hard to predict. I also find having more than 5 places a bit repulsive (it's a human language after all). Even five is one too many, in my opinion.
So I'll add just one place, and the idea is not to forbid the lujvo from having more than one place. No. The idea is to wait and see what other places one finds oneself needing in a real life situation. After a while, there should be an actual demand for the additional place, because different people who used the word will have come to the same conclusion that that particular additonal sumti place would be very useful to have. And then I would add the place. Remember, it's easier to add places than to delete them from a definition.

So the point of all the above is of course practicality. Lujvo remain reasonably short, and their place structures are only as complex as practical experience motivates us to make them. So, if you ever see me put up a lujvo on jbovlaste with just one place, now you hopefully know why.

4 Comments

Selpahi's Guidelines For Importing Words As Fu'ivla

1/16/2014

2 Comments

For words (meanings) that are too hard to make a lujvo for, fu'ivla are usually a better option. They tend to be shorter, and they bear more resemblence to the source word, which is especially useful when the word is the same all over the planet.

I propose a set of sound change rules (or call them guidelines) for importing words. Why are rules even needed? Because fu'ivla have to have a certain shape to be proper Lojban words, and the shape may not align perfectly with the source word.

The simplest example of this is when the source word contains no consonant clusters or the cluster(s) is/are too far on the right of the word so that we'd end up with the beginning of the word falling off as a cmavo. We shall call this case "lack of exploitable clusters".

A common method there is to swap two letters around, usually from CVCV- to VCCV-. It's not a bad method, and sometimes it's the only option.

The other method is to add a ghost consonant that doesn't stick out. What letters to use as ghost consonants depends heavily on the surrounding letters.

Let's take the example word "version" -> {version}. Immediately we notice that 1) it does not end in a vowel and 2) it contains an undesirable (and hopefully soon illegal) {sio}-syllable. Let's fix the second problem first. A glide {i} after {s} and {z} gets removed and the {s} and {z} get replaced by {c} and {j} respectively. Now the current shape is {vercon}. We only need to add a vowel and then we're done. {e} feels right, but it matters very little for this example. The resulting word {vercone} is a beautiful fu'ivla that still sounds a lot like the source word *and* is does not contain problematic consonant+vowel pairs.

Let's do another one; "design" -> {desain}. (lojbanizing usually involves a mixture of pronunciation, spelling and etymological considerations)
Again the same problems as before: 1) Does not end in a vowel and has no exploitable clusters. Number 1 can be fixed easily -> {desaine}. Now where to get a consonant cluster from? Here, the idea is to add a ghost consonant after the {s}. The appropriate ghost consonant in this case is {x}, so the word becomes {desxaine}. It's also possible to add the {x} before the {s}: {dexsaine}. It depends on which option yields the less obtrusive ghost consonant.

Here is a list of common ghost consonants and their typical environments (V stands for any vowel):
sV -> sxV
cV -> tcV
jV -> djV
tV -> tsV
dV -> dzV
VzV -> VrzV

The list can be extended, but the idea should already be clear.

Sometimes, all we have to do is delete a vowel and maybe add a {'} to break up illegal vowel pairs: "onomatopoeia" -> {onmatopo'eia}.

And here is a list of undesirable/outlawed consonant+vowel pairs and their replacements:
s/z/c/j + i + V -> cV/jV/cV/jV
d/t + i + V -> djV/tcV

Finally, some foreign words are extremely short, like "rap" (as in rap music). Adding a vowel -> e.g. {rapu} we run into the problem that adding a ghost consonant would produce a gismu shape, which is undesirable. One trick here is to add a ghost consonant in such a way to the final consonant that it doesn't create a legal initial pair and then to change the previous syllable from CV to CV'V with the V repeated. Concretely, {rapu} -> {rapxu} -> {ra'apxu}. If {px} were a legal initial pair, the word would not be a fu'ivla but a lujvo. That's the reason for this limitation.

So now, armed with these ideas, we can much more easily import words and we can do so in a more predictable way.

(I wrote this article in five minutes, that's why it has no structure.)

2 Comments

My story

12/28/2013

11 Comments

A little less than a month ago, I took a break from Lojban, more specifically from the Lojban IRC channel(s). What led me to that? Well it's a long story, but I'll try to explain as much as I can. It all began several months earlier.

I've been logjammin' for a little over four years, and I've put in a lot of time, effort, passion and love. I have contributed to lots of mailing list discussions, I have translated well over 60.000 words of literature into Lojban, I have spent countless hours on IRC conversing with people in Lojban to represent it, I have helped dozens of people learn the language, I've made several videos/audio recordings that you can find on youtube, and I even created the first Lojban rap song of all time. Why did I do all this? It's simple: Love. I love Lojban, and I'm hoping that that's sort of evident seeing how much I've done with and for the language.

Now, over the years I have also acquired a lot of knowledge on the history of Lojban, mostly by reading insane amounts of mailing list threads. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. A few of them I read multiple times, and those threads had over 500 posts in it. Day and night, Lojban was on my mind. I take a walk everyday, and when I have nothing specific to think about, my mind automatically wanders back to some Lojban topic, it's become automatic.

With so much knowledge, it was just natural that I would want to help get the language into a finalized form. When you love something as much as I loved Lojban, you want it to be in the best condition possible. You want it to shine, and you want it to be liked by others, and that means taking special measures to make it attractive to a wider audience. Those were my ambitions, anyway. The BPFK had long since vaporized, and for almost a decade the language has now been in a state that is somewhere between a coma and chaos. I wanted so badly for that to change for the better. I think you can empathize with me.

I was not the only one to want Lojban to change, nor the only one unhappy about its unclear state. Of course I wasn't. In the history of Lojban, there have always been a few people at any given time who wanted to make adjustments, fix things, reform things. They tend to get dismissed as tinkerers, who are just never happy with what they've got. So, naturally there was a small group of such tinkerers around at this point of Lojban's history as well. For tinkerers, one common activity is to openly discuss potential changes and get on everyone else's nerves who see their established system as being threatened. I was surely one of those people who had many ideas of what could be done to improve the language. Mostly, I wanted to have clear definitions for everything, something which is still only a dream, but more on that later.

After the BPFK's death (and yes, I won't stop calling it dead), Robin (camgusmis) became the only person in charge of the Lojban project. Some like to refer to him as the Benevolent Dictator For Life. Well, let's home it's not literally "for life". Not even he himself wants that. Still, it's the current situation, and has been for almost a decade. It's a sad state, so of course people like myself and other tinkerers would ignore the fact that they have no say in anything, and they'd just go ahead and talk about changes, despite there being only one person to have any rights: The Dictator.

Lojbanist gleki would always call that position "nolraitru" (king) when we talked. Seeing me propose things and expressing my opinions on things, he eventually began suggesting that I could be the new nolraitru. He kept bringing it up, too, so it seemed he was actually seriously proposing it. At first, I dismissed the idea. I knew that it was hopeless, since someone else was already "nolraitru" and he surely wouldn't just give me his power. But as happens so often, it eventually got to me. The thought of finally getting a chance to help my beloved Lojban achieve its final state of beauty. So I ended up liking the idea of "taking over". It was like someone had put an idea in my mind and it was too late too get rid of it. I had to go for it, somehow. So I slowly began to ask a few people on IRC what they thought about me becoming nolraitru. I operated quite cautiously. I could have written a huge mailing list announcement like "I am offering to take over. Say yes, if you want Lojban to be complete!", but I wasn't exactly convinced anybody there would say yes. Even after all this time, I felt people still didn't really give me any credit. Thus, I limited my aspirations to the IRC channel first. tsani, who was basically among the aforementioned group of tinkerers, said he wouldn't mind my being nolraitru, despite our differences. I'm not sure who else expressed approval, but overall, it wasn't much. More importantly, the people whose opinions weighed the most clearly stated that they "don't want Lojban to change", and Robin himself let me know quite clearly that he would not let me take over, since I am "too much of a tinkerer". So there I had it: proof that all the effort and love I had thus far put into Lojban got me no more than anyone else had got. I was just another random tinkerer. Out to destroy the language.

Let me stress again how much Lojban meant to me all this time. It meant everything to me.

For many, Lojban is just a hobby on the side. But for me, Lojban for a long time had been the number one priority in my life. And that's just crazy. And then, to get so little in return; it kind of makes you wonder if it's all worth it. Heck, not only get so little in return, but to also have other people think that I would willfully destroy this language I love so much if I were given the chance; that was just a very painful experience. And it was the reason I eventually got so bitter and sad; the fact that the help I was willing to offer was not the kind of help people were willing to accept from me. It really hurt.

Looking back, I can now simply say that they missed their chance. I'm not exaggerating when I claim that I could have finished the whole damn documentation of the language within only a few months. But well, they apparently thought I was just going to change the language willy-nilly according to my own wishes only. They were wrong. I would have been a moderator, first and foremost. I would have steered the long overdue discussions and I would have made sure to see them through to completion, culminating in a complete description of the language that incorporates all the many things we as a community have learned over the years. A language that we could have been proud to show to newcomers. They missed their chance. Now I'll just wait patiently.

What happened next?

To tell you the truth, leaving the channel was hard. I'd been on it 24/7 for years. It was like cutting off an arm. But I had to take a break. I was starting to give off negative vibes without realizing it. My sadness was radiating and right then I realized that I could no longer allow this. I quit the channel.

The first few days after that, I still could not stop thinking about Lojban. It was crazy. In fact, it seemed as though I was thinking about Lojban even more intensively for those few days. Cutting out IRC had somehow lifted a weight from my shoulders and mind, and my Lojban thoughts started to flow freely.

Of course, this wasn't the point of the break. What I needed was some emotional distance. I had gotten too deep into the rabbit hole the months before. I needed a change of surroundings. I needed emotional clarity. A fresh start — perhaps. A new perspective — certainly.

I managed to finally finish The Wizard of Oz a few days before christmas. When I showed my father the text, he was quite impressed. He then went on to ask a question whose core has been bugging me ever since: "Wouldn't it be nice if you could use your ability on something that more people could read?".
If you recall, I said above that I had begun to wonder if it was all worth it. Putting in so much and getting so little, isn't there something else I should be doing instead? Something that will help me make money maybe (or at least something where I'll be trusted)?
I'm still wondering about this. Sure, I can do it just because. A hobby doesn't have to pay your rent. But when that hobby takes on such monstrous proportions, I think you'd better think about it at least a little bit. When I said earlier that Lojban was the number one priority in my life, I meant it. I had my family go on vacation without me just so that I could work on Lojban. Spending so much time on something means that other things will fall short. If I at least got something for it, I wouldn't have to question it so much. I have always wanted to have a Lojban newspaper, for example. But damnit, it's a lot of work to publish one even just monthly. I am no longer convinced it would be the right thing to do to keep putting Lojban ahead of everything else like that. I can't have a job and still do Lojban 24/7. I have to make some choices, and I'm very uncertain right now. I think I have found the desired emotional distance, but there is still a way to go to find emotional clarity considering this.

But whatever my decision will be, I think this post should give you some idea of what's been going on with me recently and I hope you can better understand me now. As I'm trying to make this a fresh start, feel free to forget everything you think you knew about me and then get to know me anew. I'm in a different place now than I was.

(You may notice that I've stripped the blog down to just Lojban and Toaq Dzu. My Lojban writings can be found on www.selpahi.de, so there is no need to host them here as well.)

Please leave a comment below.

11 Comments