Re: This Chemical Element stuff

[cowan (John Cowan)]

la nitcion. pu cusku di'e:

> There are three types of gismu in lojban: prims, abbreviations (cmavo etc.)
> and names (cultures, animal names, such like).

Let's try to straighten out the terminology, so we don't get into a tangle
here.  "gismu" refers only to the 5-letter Lojban root words.
These used to be called "prims" in Old Loglan, because Old Loglan didn't
have Loglan names for its grammatical concepts.  The words "gismu", "bridi",
"cmavo", "lujvo", and "mekso" were all introduced at the Lojban split.
Some "prims" aren't semantic primitives, so "gismu" is a better term
in general.

> For better or worse, presumably for purposes of economy, Jim Brown apparently
> decided some names-of-objects will be used so often in word formation, they
> should be assigned gismu. This, regrettably, is where the concepts "metaphor
> as the real world understands it" and "metaphor as JCB construes it" get
> mixed up. Accept the argument that 'rose' is used in metaphor (a la real
> world), as in a Burns poem or something? Then hey presto, give it a gismu,
> because some lojbani schmuck will one day make a metaphor with it.
               ^^^^^^^
Is this the analogue of "Kuwaiti", "Israeli", etc?

Don't forget that Lojban/Loglan has a history.  The current view of tanru
is a product of that history: in the beginning, "traditional metaphor" was
indeed the basis for tanru creation.  Consequently, a lot of funky gismu
remain in the list that probably aren't going to be used much in tanru-
or lujvo-making.

> Not all name gismu deserve immediate death. Strangely enough, those "cmene
> in gismu clothing", the cultural names, deserve gismuification, because
> they are used a hell of a lot in tanru (France country, Germany langauge,
> Spain literature). The criteria for selection of cultures suck, and I suggest
> someone propose a batch more of 'em for next Logfest, but gismu themselves 
> are alright.  Not indspensable: anything a name gismu can do, a cmene can do 
> and a le'avla can do, as far as semnatics is concerned. But convenient and 
> lujvoable.

Exactly.  Note that unlike the gismu in general, the culture words are
guaranteed to have 3-letter rafsi.  What criteria would you propose?
I'll post the current criteria in a companion message.

> Turning to the chem elements: don't worry Ivan, John can't supply you with
> non-malglico tanru from Nickel or Neon, becuase there are none. There isn't 
> even a malglico tanru for it, apart from "nickel coin".

And "neon light".

> So what to do? Recall: 5 years from publication till final baseline. Pre-
> diction: at that time, people go over the gismu in use and find that tanru
> are not being made at all with {rozgu},{navni},{nikle} - or at least not
> significantly more than with {xukrbromidi},{xukrurani}, whatever. If they
> have any brains, they bow to consensus and either:
> shove the unused gismu into le'avla space (which is sensible, though heavy-
> handedly prescriptive), or:
> leave it in as an archaism, and recommend against it.

I think the heavy hand is going a bit too far.  "rozgu" may not be especially
useful as the modifier in a tanru, but (like the other plant and animal
terms) it's highly useful as the modificand.  There are all kinds of roses,
bears, etc. etc.  Omitting the "natural kind" gismu forces us into using
cmene-fied or le'avla-fied Linnaean binomials for >everything<, including
many common objects.  Do you want to exclude "remna" from the gismu list,
on the grounds that "xomrsapieni" does just as well?  I hope not.
The list of 1-place gismu may need some weeding, especially in the more
arcane parts, but not total elimination.  I think "le ci cribe" would be
poorly served as "le ci danlrxursusorribili".

> Lojbab's "chuck another cmavo on the barbie"
                                       ^^^^^^
Another sralo term, presumably = "barbecue"?  In merko glico, it signifies
a well-known doll, immensely popular, of a notoriously vacuous appearance.
I remember a sentence from >The Story Of English<, allegedly sralo, explaining
the absence of a female co-worker:  "She had a hizzie in the hozzie".  :-)

> Oh, and another thing. I've heard it claimed that BAI are there to, interalia,
> allow all place structures to be expressed with BAI. Prove it. Do it for
> just five brivla, and I'll believe it. Because BAI looks awfully diletantish
> to me. ("Superinclusive"? Really? If there's a semantic theory on prepositions
> or something such out there, avail yourselves of it. A language like lojban
> cannot be designed with the happy-go-lucky empiricism of a Zamenhof. You
> need to know exactly what you're doing.)

Would there were such a "case theory" satisfactory enough to use.  If we
had that, we wouldn't need the magic place structures.

-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban