[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Final vowels
- To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
- Subject: Final vowels
- From: "Daniel S. Efran" <cbmvax!uunet!andrew.cmu.edu!de0t+>
- Date: Fri, 10 May 91 17:45:54 -0400 (EDT)
Chip Salzenberg says:
So if no gismu like "bridV" other than "bridi" can be created, then
why not have all gismu end with the same vowell, say "o", thus freeing
up "CVVCa", "CVVCe", etc. for other uses?
As I'm sure 6 or 7 people will tell Chip, the reason not to use more
than one vowel for any CVCC/CCVC (whether for bridi or for 'other uses')
is to reduce the chance of mishearing or mislearning a word, and in general
to keep things reasonably simple. (Some of those 6 or 7 people will be
more precise in their phrasing.)
Still, why *not* make them all the same vowel? This would make the language
quite a bit easier to learn (the vocabulary anyway)...and I don't see how it
would cause any problems, unless it was with words with similar consonants
(for example, pretend that in addition to {karce} we had {karse} or {karke})
In those cases we could change the final vowel to help, though really it's
the speaker's problem to pronounce them correctly.
It plays hell with the word-generation rules (Many words' scores go down)
but the loss in ease-of-learning from having fewer cognates would be more
than made up for by the ease-of-learning *gain* of having all those vowels
the same.
I don't expect this to happen, but will someone please tell me why it's a
bad idea so I won't feel so bad when it doesn't get done?
co'o
---la deniel