rafsi

["John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>]

        Well, at least mark,l is willing to do some of the work
his broad complaint suggested.  As he has pointed out, the
system he is working with is a rafsi and lujvo system, so we
must withhold final judgement until we see in detail how
some gaps are filled in and how the glue rules are worked out
in detail.  We can make a few preliminary remarks however,
perhaps constructive in suggesting how the those rules ought
to be formulated.
        First of all, the plan does get rid of the rafsi that look
like cmavo, though this was at most an irritant for people who
learn vocabulary from a list rather than in context.  In
particular, it was never an ambiguity (and not strictly even a
case of homophony).  But it was a flaw in many an aesthetic
view of systems, so worth fixing at a small cost.
        Secondly, it does give every (or pretty near every --
there are some unproven cases) a short rafsi.  Many of these
are, of course, four letters long though still one syllable.  So,
at least in theory, most two-gismu lujvo could be two
syllables.  In fact, since the new rafsi create new contact
cases, most of these will actually be three or even four
syllables when the work is done.  The average lujvo will
probably get slightly longer on this proposal (almost certainly
on letter count, probably also on syllable count).  But it will
still be (slightly again) shorter than a system that used only the
current four- and five-letter rafsi and the current glue.  (The
system also provides for over half the current gismu another
of mark,l's desiderata, a relatively easy and uniform way to get
from gismu to rafsi and back, like cases being treated alike
and all.  A pure bonus, of course, and not likely to carry over
to the remaining cases, the assignment of CAC and  STA and
STEI and SPIA forms.)
        The space this proposal makes available for word final
affixes is probably adequate, even without a lot of tarting up.
The present system uses only about 625 word- final rafsi
(CVV,CV'V, CCV) and that already includes several cmavo
imported into the rafsi system.  It does, of course, have more
room for expansion that the proposed system, even with the
tarting up. But, assuming that the space can be fully utilized, it
should be as effective as the present system in its present
form.
        The assumption there is a problem.  I suppose mark,l
wants to assign those spaces to the gismu most likely to end
up as the base of compounds.  But, as he has pointed out,
figuring out which those are is not an easy task, though he will
have a lot more Lo??an data than either JCB or Lojbab had.  It
will still be unsatisfying to many people all the time and to
each person at least some of the time.  So he will do the best
he can according to his sense of rightness, as everyone else
has done before him, and fare about as well as they -- or
better, given the extra data (though still largely American
English at its heart).  The price to pay for an occasional
misuse of an affix here is minor.
        The problem with the CAC forms is more severe,
since here it is possible he may lose an gismu altogether --
maybe not an important one, but enough to drop the claim of
complete coverage (not to mention the various symmetries
from earlier desiderata, but they were doomed anyway).  For
presumably even these forms are stuck with the Cs and Vs of
the original and it is at least theoretically possible that there
could be a set of gismu such that no combination of forms
could cover them all.  There probably is not such a set in the
present list and care could be taken in expanding to not allow
one (indeed, such care may have been taken even in the
present list) but, until the task of assigning is done, it remains
a possibility.  A more likely possibility is that some legal CAC
has no legal gismu to go to -- or none that is not more
obviously related to another CVC.  So the full space may not
get used, throwing the statistics off a bit.  But also leaving
room for some expansion -- not a bad thing.  This latter might
also happen with the word-final space, the flip side of moving
some things from four-letter space to three letter space.
        The proposed system would need (assuming that the
sticking together of rafsis is not done in any surprising way)
all of the current rules about hyphens of various sorts plus
some others, as mark,l notes, for new contacts, almost all of
which would apparently need y's of the like, for
pronunciation, if not for resolution.  I think it unlikely that the
resolution algorithm would require more glue with these
forms -- when they differ from long-affix forms in the present
system, they seem to be on the side of even more safely brivla
forms.  The le'avla/fu'ivla space would also need also need
redefinition, though the old vague "anything that can pass as a
brivla but is not a gismu or lujvo" would still work -- but
would be a smaller class, lujvo space having expanded.
        Whether the internal resolution of a lujvo into a unique
string of rafsi would always be be unique needs someone with
a quick hand at combinatorics to work through.  With a larger
number of rafsi types, the proof will be more complex to
complete unless there is a quicky guarantee of success in the
structure somewhere -- as the various structural descriptions
suggest there may be.
        The last question before we might get around to
considering this proposal is, is it worth the effort?  After
seeing the advantages or breakeven points above, consider the
following objections.  The problem it officially sets out to
solve is of no particular significance to the language, however
annoying it is to a learner.  The solution ends up making lujvo
slightly longer, even than they would be with the perfect
coverage that the present system allows.  It gives prime rafsi
real estate to rarely used forms (the cmavo), an aesthetic
minus in many people's eyes -- certainly worse that the
original problem of rafsi/cmavo doublets.  I suspect each of us
could add a few favorites of our own.  But then each must do
the final toting up.  But do wait for the final form of the
proposal, with all the proofs and rules in place (though the
need for new rules and proofs may turn a few off already).
pc>|83