Re: length vs longness

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la stivn cusku di'e

> <linto> :: <tilju> for weight
> <clani> :: <tordu> for length in longest dimension
> <ganra> :: <jarki> for length in the second longest dimension
> <rotsu> :: <cinla> for length in shortest dimension
>
> You don't need analogous words for <junta> when talking about weight. I
> realize this is simple stuff, but it sure confused me. I have found it
> quite helpful to take related gismu and group their definitions together to
> sort out exactly what they mean. lojbab seemed to think that a thesaurus
> would not make sense for lojban, maybe something *like* a thesaurus would
> be helpful. Of course, if the definitions were structured cleverly, one
> could imbed them in a database to look at the gismu in this way and make
> your *own* minithesaurus each time you were stuck.

I did make a sort of classification of gismu when doing the translation
of the gismu list into Spanish. (BTW, the translation is almost ready.
Jose is now revising/improving it, and hopefully it will be ready before
the end of the year.)

There is an underlying regularity of the place structures, but unfortunately
there was a lot of liberality about exceptions.

> If there are only 70 gismu that have sumti for standards, why not drop the
> standards? Is it too late to do this? Is this part of the language already
> baselined?

I don't think place structures are officially baselined yet, there have
been one or two small changes in the last couple of years. I would certainly
be in favour of a much needed rationalization there.

Jorge