Re: Ethnic Gismu, Learning

[Giuliano Lancioni <mc7926@MCLINK.IT>]

Jorge wrote:
>> 'Boring' is not the polar opposite of zdile! (This way, you use
>> tol- like Esperanto mal-, I thought lujvo-making was somewhat less
>> trivial).
>
>Well, in Esperanto there's "teda", I don't think "malamuza" is used
>at all.
>
>What does {tolzdile} mean, then? And how do you propose to say "boring"?
>Notice that {zdile} is amusing/entertaining, not amusing/funny.
>
>In any case, I really don't see much difference between Esperanto mal- and
>Lojban tol-.
>
The matter, I think, is more complex: it involves the role of composition
and derivation in language. Lojban does not make use of derivation: in
principle, you shouldn't have Esperanto-style affixes at your disposal.
Lojban does make use of composition instead: lexical composition in lujvo,
phrasal composition in tanru. The reasons usually given for the necessity of
composition are practical in nature: to avoid tanru (and, in a lesser
extent, lujvo), you should employ clumsy wordings, which would make
sentences lengthy.
My opinion is that a logical language should give up composition too
entirely: tanru should not be an option, and function words (even very
generic ones, with argument structures of the type x1 is relative to x2)
should be used instead. As to adjective-like tanru (e.g. 'blanu drudi'), I
think that the standard treatment in Montague semantics (something like 'x1
is a roof & x1 is blue') could work as well.
Please do your remarks; I am an absolute beginner to lojban, and surely I
miss something, or even the point.

Giuliano Lancioni
mc7926@mclink.it