Re: TECH.QUERY *mexco

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

Veijo wants attitudinal's.

.uaro'ero'o.ianaicaise'i ba'anai la noras .e'ecai joi .i'i mi
.a'a.a'ero'e mutce birti lenu lanli le valsi po'e le gi'uste .a'icai ca
lenu finti gi'eji'a cipra leka xamgu sance terzba vau
ba'anaicairo'aro'ero'i re'epeise'i .iku'izu'unai simlu fa na'ebo
.oicaise'i .uu.oicaise'i .u'e.i'anaise'icai.u'ucairo'a.uuro'e
.e'enaise'icai le sego'i

.i vu'inai .e'oga'inai ko fraxu doi cecmu .ua .a'onai .i .eicai.e'i
sutra cikre fu'i.a'o
.ijo go'e ju'onai
.o'unai .o'anai
.o'unai .o'anai
.o'unai .o'anai
se'i
zo'onai

Switching back to English before I fry everyones emotional and
Lojban-processing circuits, both Nora and I are sure that we
specifically checked for just such problems with a program written for
that purpose, but cannot find any record of it.  We both recall the
question coming up once before about one word (perhaps this one) very
early, and it having been resolved either by a change or deciding it
wasn't really a problem.  I will presume that we did find it, and forgot
to change the file, but I can find no records, nor the test program.
Cowan has checked his archives too and found no discussion of it.  So I
presume someone screwed up royally, and it must have been me as main
builder and maintainer of the gismu list.

Given the triple baseline - morphology, gismu, and rafsi something has to
change.  We could optionally change the morphology rules to make xc
permissible arguing on the grounds that no one has noticed that the word
wasn't sayable yet, so it must really be sayable.  The rationale for
forbidding the cluster is the likelihood that speakers or listeners will
confuse xc with kc, especially given that large numbers of the speaker
base have trouble with 'x' in the first place.  (I also note that my son,
who is a native speaker of a language with an 'x', often pronounces it
such that I can't tell it from a 'k'.)  We decided to err on the side of
caution with this letter.

But Nora notes that a change to the permissible medials, especially one
in the exception list rule defining them, is the smallest and least
noticeable change.  On the other hand, JL is going out with a new rafsi
list, and prominent in the lujvo-making algorithm is the rules defining
permissible clusters.  So it may not be THAT unnoticeable.

We can change the gismu, but to minimize impact, we would have to
preserve the assigned 'mex' rafsi.  The constraints on 'x' clusters
doesn't give us a lot of choice.  It seems most logical to change the
'c' to one of the four 'easy' consonants:  l/m/n/r, giving mexlo, mexmo,
mexno, or mexro.  Of these, Cowan favors mexro, though it does make it
closer to merko (but then it has been close enough to get confused with
mekso, and an 'r' would help there.  Nora and I find this acceptable.
Any one else have an opinion?  As a baseline change, it will be decided
finally at LogFest, but I doubt that anyone will disagree with whatever
we come up with here.

Cowan has written a program to check for any more such surprises, and
there aren't any.

I guess we all owe Iain a ki'ecai.e'ese'inai for catching this the very
first day I'm working on the dictionary full time.

(mutter, mutter, mutter)

lojbab