Lujvo Paper, part 4.1 (continuing from 3.3)

[Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>]

4. Some common lujvo patterns.

Many of the lujvo we have collected are based on a small number of tertanru
or seltanru. These lujvo fall into natural patterns, so it is obviously
desirable we use these regularities as much as possible to streamline
their place structures. If many lujvo are based on the same tertanru, it
makes sense to try to have their place structures follow the same patterns.
In lujvo-making in general, the specific meaning and context of use of a
lujvo may alter its place structure from the patterns we have encouraged.
These patterns, however, which correspond a lot to other languages' affixes,
rather than compound words, are so prevalent that the need for such
subtleties is eroded.

We list the most common such patterns below.

4.1. {rinka}- and {gasnu}- based lujvo.

These lujvo have a long history in Lojban. They have been an impetus to
lujvo place structure investigation, through their well-defined place
structures as belenu-lujvo, and through their similarity to transitivising
and causative affixes in other languages. They are extremely productive,
and help make Lojban much more speakable by simplifying the structural
representation of complex GDS's.

By looking only at the keywords in the gismu lists, Lojban users may be
unaware that English often expresses two distinct concepts with the same
verb, where Lojban must use two different bridi. As discussed above, the
English verb "to sink" has two meanings. The intransitive meaning, as in
"The boat sinks", is that something is lowered. The transitive, as in
"The Biddleonian sunk two ships", is that some agent cause something to
be lowered.

Lojban gismu usually express intransitive concepts; , for example, the
related concept of immersion is expressed by {jinru} as: entity x1 is immersed
in liquid x2. The related transitive concept is expressed by the GDS
{tu'a da cu rinka lenu de jinru di}, or {da gasnu lenu de jinru di}. As
we discussed in the first section, it makes more sense to speakers of other
languages to express this transitive concept as a single selbri: {jinryri'a} or
{jinrygau}.

{broda zei rinka} lujvo have the place structure: r1 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 r3;
{broda zei gasnu} lujvo have the place structure: g1 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5: these
are belenu-lujvo *par excellence*. With the old gismu place structures, {le
rinka} was an agent, and {rinka}-based lujvo were prevalent. When raising was
elminated from the place structure of {rinka}, and {le rinka} became a cause
rather than a causer, {gasnu} became the preferred tertanru. This is because
people prefer to speak of relations between agents {lei gasnu no'u lei jai
rinka} and patients {lei jai se gasnu no'u lei jai se rinka}, rather than
causes {lei rinka} and effects {lei se rinka}.

Note that these lujvo can not only do the equivalent of transitivising an
intransitive, or making an already transitive verb a causitive (eg. basti: x1
replaces x2 in circumstances x3 -> basygau: x1 (agent) replaces x2 with x3 in
circumstances x4; the transitive/intransitive dichotomy is, of course,
irrelevant in Lojban). They can also affect what we would consider nouns
or adjectives in English. This is consistent with similar affixes in other
languages. For example, {glare}: x1 is hot by standard x2, can give {glagau},
to heat: x1 (agent) makes x2 hot by standard x3. Or {litki}: x1 is a liquid
of composition x2 under conditions x3, can give {likygau}, to liquefy:
x1 (agent) causes x2 to be a liquid of composition x3 under conditions x4.
This particular case is problematic: x2 seems redundant, and this may
indicate that {gasnu} is the wrong tertanru. {galfi} is a more appropriate
tertanru in some such cases.

One should beware that, particularly with {gasnu}, the seltanru need not
necessarily be in a {belenu} relation with the tertanru. It may specify
the manner of the tertanru instead. {kalsygau}, for example, may not
mean "to make somethic chaotic (to mess something up)"; it may simply
mean "to act chaotic, to do something chaotically". In either case, but
particularly in the latter, the lujvo-maker may have to augment the lujvo
to disambiguate it. Such disambiguation could be left for a dictionary,
but that seems too great a complication for no good reason.

4.2. {zmadu}- and {mleca}- lujvo.

Such lujvo also mirror a frequent construct in other languages: comparatives.
These lujvo express the concept of exceeding in a way more familiar to
speakers of other languages than the corresponding GDS. Compare:

I am six years younger than you.
.i mi citmau do lo nanca be li xo
.i mi zmadu do leni da citno kei lo nanca be li xo

The {da} in the {leni citno} phrase corresponds to a bound variable in
a lambda expression, as discussed recently on Lojban List; it is substituted
in turn by {mi} and {do}. Its place is not included in the place structure
of the corresponding lujvo. Thus, a {broda zei zmadu} lujvo has the place
structure: z1 z2 b2 b3 b4 b5 z4, and a {mleca zei zmadu} lujvo has the
place structure: m1 m2 b2 b3 b4 b5 m4. This place structure makes sense
as a {belenu}-lujvo, as the GDS-lujvo relation exemplified above shows.
It has the disadvantage of displacing the {ve zmadu} place by an indefinite
number of places, which varies for each lujvo. This may eventually be
reason enough to jumble the placesm treating this as a je-lujvo, and
placing z4 *before* the seltanru places. For the time being, we have
left the place structure in {belenu}-arrangement.

These lujvo are also extremely productive, {zmadu} much more so than {mleca}.
They are used much more frequently than {zmadu} and {mleca} themselves as
selbri. Ambiguity in such lujvo (ie. the seltanru having a relation other
than {belenu} with the tertanru) is unlikely.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick S. Nicholas,                      "Rode like foam on the river of pity
CogSci & CompSci student,               Turned its tide to strength
University of Melbourne, Australia.     Healed the hole that ripped in living"
nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au           - Suzanne Vega, Book Of Dreams
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