Confusible words (was: Re: Quine Text)

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!BRADFORD.AC.UK!C.J.Fine>]

I'll try to answer Dave's question. Probably somebody at the lojbangirz
can give a more authoritatvie answer.
>
> It's good that Lojban makes a distinction between "mass" and
> "collective" (though these don't seem like great terms to use). This
> is a useful distinction to make if one is trying to be clear.
>
> However, problems arise when similar words can be used in the same
> context with different meanings. In spoken English I find "can" and
> "can't" to be the worst offenders [as in "I cang go with you"]. In
> written English "now" and "not" are problematical ["We are now/not
> ready."] because, though apparently clear and unambiguous, each word
> is easy to mistype as the other.
>
> My Lojban is still very very weak, but it sounds from what mark says
> as though {loi}, {lo'i}, and {lo'e} can all be used in identical
> contexts, with different meanings. These sound very much alike,
> particularly the first two. I should think that someone who has
> learned to type these words would also tend to type one for another.
>
> If these similar-sounding words can be used in the same context, this
> would be a Bad Thing. It's OK for completely different words to sound
> alike (such as "hungry" and "Hungary"), because they don't occur in
> similar contexts; it's not OK for words that are used in identical
> contexts to sound alike.
>

I think the critical thing is not whether there are words that can be
mistaken for each other (inevitable) nor even words that can occur in
the same context that are mistakable (probably inevitable), but how much
the sense is changed by the mistake.
 As you say, "can" and "can't" are sometimes difficult to distinguish;
similarly the negative particle "ne" in French often vanishes (which is
why "pas" and "personne" became standard - they originally had no
special negative meaning).
In Institute Loglan, the digits were in pairs sharing an initial
consonant, eg "fo" = 4, "fe" = 5, and the designers of Lojban
deliberately took a different tack - if you're talking numbers at all,
it is inclined to be important which number (as the Scots soldiers
discovered in France during the war, when they kept asking for two
things (Scots "twa") and getting three (French "trois").
 However, what is significant here is that the difference between the
words is quite subtle. Granted that each of the words
        la/lai/la'i/le/lei/le'e/le'i/lo/loi/lo'e/lo'i
certainly has a different meaning, or they wouldn't be defined as
different, nonetheless they all perform the function of designating
something(s) expressed either as a selbri or a cmene. Agreed you can
probably come up with examples where the difference is important, nay
vital, I doubt that it is very often going to be the case that getting
the wrong one makes that much difference.
 Which is not to say that Lojban is free of more serious possibilities
for confusion. I am waiting for somebody to confuse "-moi" after cmavo,
with "-moi" after rafsi. For example "romoi" = "last", "rolmoi" = "all
dead"!

                        kolin