Re: Cowan on morphology

[Chris Handley <CHandley@GANDALF.OTAGO.AC.NZ>]

And writes:
> A more rational design would make words self-segrating, but not morphemes.
>Even if morphemes fail to self-segregate, they would still serve as clues
>to the word's meaning.
>
As I see it, and as a very much peripheral Lojbanist I am more than likely
wrong, the problem is not that morphemes may not self-segregate. but that
they may segregate differently from the intension. Although the meaning of a
word is accessible from a dictionary, we normally only consult a dictionary
if we are unsure - we may be wrong but unaware of it.

I can still remember my confusion on reading the words of the Evening
Collect (old prayer book, Anglican Church) "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our
doings, ...". It was not until I did Latin years later and realised that the
word was formed from "prae + venio" = "come before" or in the modern
translation : "Go before us, ...".

I know this does not seem like the same problem, but I think it is. If we
wish to put together an unlikely string of words in Lojban, then we may, and
we can then attempt to puzzle out the meaning. If we wish to put an unlikely
combination of morphemes to gether, than we should be able to. If
'legitimate' words pre-empt unlikely words by trespassing on their space,
then we lose the ability to create the unlikely words.

Remember -- colourless green ideas sleep less furiously in Lojban than the
do in English.


======================================================================
Chris Handley                                     chandley@otago.ac.nz
Dept of Computer Science                       Ph     (+64) 3-479-8499
University of Otago                           Fax     (+64) 3-479-8577
Dunedin, NZ
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