Re: self-segregating morphemes

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

The problem with Frank Schulz's suggestion is that you would either have
to greatly expand the selection of permissible initial consonant clusters,
or you would only have something like 240 gismu with combining forms.
Part of the reason for 'all that complexity' is the requirement that ALL
gosmu have combining forms, not just some of them, and that the gismu/rafsi
list have some (if not a lot) expansibility, so that new gismu can be added
when new concpets arise.

On this subject, though.  I was thinking last night, and I realized that
there is another system that has two-level segregation, and which people
seem to learn without too much trouble:  the chemical elements and their
symbols.  You effectively have some 100 'gismu', the full element names,
and their atomic symbols, as rafsi.  People studying chemistry have to learn
both to effectively learn material.  While the numbers are smaller, I do not
recall any particular difficulty in learning atomic symbols as I needed them,
and thus being able to identify the components of a chemical compound (a
'lujvo'), even though several of the symbols are not even mnemonic.

What happens, and I think it happens with Lojban as well, is that you learn
a few of them because they occur all of the time.  Then as you see most
 compouns,
you know where to look up what you don't know, but you ususally know at
least part of the compound (and sometimes, just as in language text, context
can tell you what a symbol means).

Even though I have studied no chemistry for some 20 years, i still recall
most of the chemical elements, and probably could recognize 80% of the
chemical symbols, and recall at least 50%, yet we only run into a few of the
symbols in 'everyday life'.  I presume that most chemists, or chemistry
students (i.e. comparable to people who are serious about learning Lojban)
get close to 100% long before they understand a fraction of the syntax
(things like valences and whatever) that controls what formulaes are
plausible and/or likely (though I seem to recall that we could learn to make
good guesses in that area too by the end of 1st year high school chem).

Whether this means Lojban's sytem is learnable, i can't say.  I know I
have had no particular trouble, though I am not good at languages (my Russian
vocabulary is growing much slower than my Lojban vocabulary did, and I use
Russian far more often).

lojbab