glossary of Lojban terms, so you can understand us - comments wanted

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!lojbab>]

And Rosta complained about our Lojban jargon.  Since an updated glossary
is one of my soon projects here is a brief list.  I'd like comments on
how clear these definitions are to both active Lojbanists and others,
and I'm also asking for people to submit terms that they think should be
defined in such a glossary - even single word suggestions are welcome.
Lojban and English jargon words that we use in talking about Lojban are
both appropriate.  To avoid net pollution, please send your suggestions
and comments only to me unless you are raising an issue of truly general
interest.

lojbab@grebyn.com
__________

cmavo - Lojban structure words; traditionally called "little words" or
LWs in the old Loglan community, we figured if we were going to use a
jargon word it might as well be a Lojban one - all cmavo are of form V,
VV, CV, CVV, V'V, CV'V, but "structure words" is a valid equivalent

gismu - Lojban root words; currently 1337; form CVCCV or CCVCV;
traditionally called 'primitives' or "Prims" in the old Loglan
community, that word gave the erroneous implication that the set of
words was in some way considered metaphysically primitive.  Penultimate
stress

rafsi - affix combining forms for the gismu; these may include a CVC, a
CVV/CV'V and a CCV form, as well as the entire word and the entire word
less the final vowel.  These are uniquely assigned, thus not all words
have rafsi, and few have all three forms.

lujvo - compound words built from rafsi; traditionally called
'complexes' or 'Cpxs' (As you can see, JCB loves acronyms; I love trying
to get people to talk in the language.  Since the language itself is one
of the key conversation topics, we needed the words anyway, and once we
had them, we dispensed with the English language jargon.  Note that we
DO avoid use of terminology that has different meaning in linguistic
circles or logic circles than in the general populace which is our main
audience.)  Always have a consonant cluster (though possibly split by
schwa, which is used solely to link impermissible consonant clusters in
lujvo and in the names of consonants), at least 6 letters, penultimate
stress, and must not break down into a cmavo+valid word.

le'avla (literally take-words) - words borrowed from other languages;
must not overlap gismu and lujvo space - we have a couple of
semi-algorithmic techniques used to ensure this.  Considered
second-class words.  Penultimate stress, consonant cluster

brivla - Lojban predicate words, consisting of gismu, lujvo. and
le'avla.

tanru - Lojban metaphors, the most productive and creative expression
form of the language; JCB in effect hypothesizes that all concepts can
be expressed as a series of binary metaphors of type
modifier-modificand, with logical connectives permitted between terms
and grouping markers to keep larger structures unambiguous.  We have
added some non-logical connectives. tanru are semantically ambiguous
because you cannot be sure specifically what type of modification is
taking place (restrictive is most common, though). jimc's incessant talk
about dikyjvo is his attempt to reduce or remove the semantic ambiguity
from tanru and the lujvo derived from them.  The design team knows that
removal of semantic ambiguity is impossible and refuses to consider
imposing the metaphysical assumptions necessary to regularize the
metaphor process.  (JCB uses the term 'metaphor', here, but the standard
connotation is that metaphors are figurative; at this point all
figurative metaphors are suspected as being culturally biased, and are
hence to be avoided.  JCB's group does not do so, hence has some really
crummy compounds.

selbri - Lojban predicates (the relation minus the arguments), most
often brivla or tanru; formerly called "kunbri" or "kunbridi" in error.

bridi - Lojban predications, the basic grammatical structure of the
language.  These last two words were among the earliest switched to
Lojban, because of the constant confusion and interchanging between
predicate and predication, with the former often being used for both by
the non-technical (including me).

selma'o - grammatical categories of Lojban words; the basis of the
unambiguous formal grammar of the language.  Traditionally called
"lexeme" in JCB's Loglan community, a more correct linguistic term would
be 'grameme' - but you never see it in the literature.  The last word
switched (just this year), once we realized we were using an incorrect
linguistics term.