Re: proposing a lujvo

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Mark Vines:
>What is the process for proposing a lujvo, getting
>the proposal accepted or modified or rejected, &
>communicating the result to Lojban users?

Gnerally you propose a lujvo by using it.  YOu may, if you choose,
provide a definition in some manner such as you did, but this is not
vital (merely useful).  There is no official "process" for approval.
As others have noted, if you are understood, trhe lujvo has been at
least tentatively accepted.  If it is malformed, then of course any
official compilation would correct the malformation, which I guess would
be a "modification".  If someone else uses/proposes a different word for the
concept, then both proposals are in effect "part of the language" and
actual usage will decide between them and/or choose still another alternative.
Most likely, for many concepts, there could exist several plausible words and
they might have a variety of  place structures according to the lujvo making
chapter of the refgrammar (or anyt other means ofdetermining said place
structures).  There is  most definitely no procedure for "rejecting" a lujvo
unless it is malformed.  The worst that can happen is that your proposal
gets
ignored either because no one needs a word for the concept (unlikely in the
case of your proposal) or because they adopt a different word.  But adopting
a different word does not mean that your word is not also a part of the
language.

Steven Belknap replied:
>Here is the procedure: Make your lujvo. Use it in a lojban utterance to
>someone who is fluent in lojban. If he/she understands, you're done. That
>is all that is required.

Correct.

Mark continued asking:
>Really?  We don't have to reach an explicit
>agreement on the place structure of the lujvo?

Do you have to agree to the definition of a word in the English language
before using it?  If you coin a word, you just start using it, and let the
definers figure it out afterwards.  In essence we are saying that you are
allowed to do the same thing in Lojban.  Of course in English you have a
solid sense as to the conventions of the language so that a new word has
some degree of understandability.  Similarly, familiarity with the conventions
described in the refgrammar will make your words more acceptable and
understandable to other Lojbanists without having to explicitly define them,
and this is the desirable state of things in a living language.

>Consider:
>
>.i zo solsentrvi'u cu sinxa lenuzo'e vimcu le
>barsenta le solri

malformed because you must use "y" and not "r" as the hyphen.  I would also
say that the word symbolizes the concept "le si'o" and not the event "le nu".
Of coursethe word "lujvo" itself would be more precise than "sinxa" in
any event, and probably would better convey the relationship of word to
meaning.

>Would a sentence like that suffice to establish
>the meaning of {solsentrvi'u}?

Yes and no.  I am not sure I know what you mean by it - removing a layer of a
star not being something that occurs in everyday life.  There is key
context information missing like who/what is doing the removal, and what is
left after this removal, that would likely be implicit in a proper definition
of solsentyvi'u.  It is not clear what you mean by "layer" either.  No doubt
if this word came up in the course of a scientific discussion of astronomy or
 even in a science fictional context, much of this imnformation would be clear,
in which case THEN the word is more or less adquately defined.  Without that
added context, others could not easily use the word and know they were
talking about the same thing that you are referring to.  So >I< would want
to present more context or a more complete definition if I wanted the word to
be added to a dictionary.

>What if some
>people prefer a more detailed lujvo such as
>{solbarborsentrvi'u}?

Then they would use it, and there are now two words for the concept,
perhaps with somewhat different place structures.

> Or what if some people
>prefer a different hyphen, yielding {solsentyvi'u}?
That one isn't optional.  However other  forms of the same word would have
 identical meaning.  These would include the completely expanded form:
solrysentyvimcu, which to a Lojban is PRECISELY THE SAME WORD AS solsentyvi'u.

>Fact is, I have trouble remembering the rules for
>hyphens.  Does {clamauri'a} work as a lujvo for
>"lengthen"?  Or must I insert an /n/, yielding
>{clamaunri'a}?

Hyphens are never optional.  If the word form demands a hyphen, you MUST
use it.  If it does not require a hyphen, you CANNOT use it.

"r" is used only after initial CVV in a lujvo not of the form CVVCCV (which
MUST NOT) have the "r", and you use "n" instead of "r" if the letter
following the hyphen is an "r".

"y" is used to break up impermissible consonant clusters, to replace the
final vowel in a CCVC- or CVCC- long-form rafsi, and most rarely, when
required by the "tosmabru" test to prevent the word from braeaking up.
It CANNOT be used otherwise.

But I would not worry too much about this in writing Lojban.  If you make a
mistake, someone will eventually correct it.  You can rest assured that all
words that go into the dictionary will be validated for proper morphology,
and repaired if need be.

Note that clamauri'a refers to a physical transitive cause of lengthening.
clamaubi'o is also a kind of lengthening, as is clamaugau/clamauzu'e
for an agentive lengthening as opposed to a causal form.  Again, context is
needed to know what you really need here.  All of the words I gave could be
and indeed ARE valid words for one sort of lengthening or another.  But
which is needed for YOUR usage, is unclear without the actual usage.


Clearly going around coining Lojban words for a list of English words/concepts
is not aparticularly definitive approach to adding new vocabulary.  Most
English words will have several Lojban equivalents.  Maybe hundreds or
thousands.  But then Athelstan once estimated that there were 5 billion
possible DISTINCT lujvo of 4 terms or less, so mapping the set of English
words to that set will yield much redundancy (not to mention billions of
Lojban words that have no meaningful English equivalent).

>.i zo solsetvi'u cu sinxa lenuzo'e vimcu le
>barsenta le solri  .i.a'o lenuzo'e solsetvi'u
>nu'o clamauri'a le solri selxaktei
>
>.i xu do jimpe go'i .e go'e

Now here you have used the word in an astronomical context and thereby
constrained your intended meaning.  It is clear that you are referring to
a physical process affecting the sun, and not, for example, to an observational
prcess for removing coronal interference with an observation of the sun's
disk (which could also be represented by solsetvi'u).  YOu have used the word
for this meaning before someone used it for another meaning, and therefore
your usage has some implicit primacy in any informal debate over the meaning
of the word.  But if it were determined that you have used too general a
word (by using too few terms), then the actual meaning of solsetvi'u
could turn out to be a generalized form, which does not necessarily render
your usage incorrect, but rather vague or perhaps even metaphorical.


Steven replied:
>My undestanding is that lujvo are metaphors.
Correct, though probably not in the way most people would understand this
sentence.

> As such, there is no explicit
>designation as to what they mean.

Until the word appears in a dictionary this is correct.  But the usage and
any explicit definition can serve to informally restrict the definition.

BUT, it is VITAL ot note that the word, whatever it means, has a SINGULAR
 meaning.
It might be vague or broad (especially if short), but it still is a singular
definition.  There is a metaphorical element to that definition, but it is
usually a quite "literal" sort of metaphor.

>My understanding is that separate lujvo constructs using different rafsi
>(combining forms) are semantically equivalent.

MOre strongly, they are IDENTICAL and not merely equivalent.  The two forms
are considered to be THE SAME WORD.

Jorge:
>>.i.a'o lenuzo'e solsetvi'u
>> nu'o clamauri'a le solri selxaktei
>>
>> .i xu do jimpe go'i .e go'e
>i mi jimpe la'e di'u iku'i o'i zo go'i su'ivla nagi'e
>selbrivla

I won't try to say this in Lojban, but it is unclear just what Jorge is
acknowledging understanding.  la'edi'u in his sentence could mean that he
understood the question about understanding, without saying anything about
understanding the sentences involving new lujvo.  Especially since Jorge
only talks about the errors in the question sentence.

.i mi no'e jimpe le cnino lujvo .ije  mi na jimpe le jufra poi vasru le
cnino lujvo

>If you want the lujvo to appear in the soon-to-be-
>-published dictionary with your proposed place structure,
>you have to reach an explicit agreement with Lojbab. :)
>Other than that, the theory is that usage will determine
>place structures.

Correct.

>{solbarborsentyvi'u}. One doesn't exclude the other.
>If the concept is needed frequently enough, one form
>will eventually become more popular, I suppose, but
>nothing will prevent anyone from useing the other.

Agreed.


lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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