Re: RET: proposing a lujvo

[Mark Vines <vinesm@wholefoods.com>]

la lojbab. cusku di'e

> Most lujvo I coin on the fly which makes lujvo-making much
> too rapid and ad hoc for the analysis you are putting in

I don't yet know the short rafsi well enough to coin lujvo
"on the fly".

> > > I am not sure I know what you mean by [{solsetyvi'u}]
> > > - removing a layer of a star not being something that
> > > occurs in everyday life.
> >
> > No, but it is one of the only two methods thus far
> > proposed for improving the likelihood that DNA-kind
> > will still exist in 6000000000 years.
> >
> > The other method:  creating new biospheres by terra-
> > forming planets (or other habitats) elsewhere in space.
>
> Now you've really got me.  You are obviously referring to some
> kind of science-fictional thesis that I have never seen,

Now I fear we may have trouble with the semantics of English.
The thesis came from a scholarly symposium whose participants
would probably describe their activities as "speculative
engineering", although I'm not sure how I would distinguish
that from science fiction.  Results were edited by Ben Finney
& Eric Jones, and published as _Interstellar Migration and
Human Experience_, a book which is not marketed as a work of
fiction.

> and I don't recognize even the English as making a lot of
> sense %^)

Well, I will try to present a better case in English, under
a different heading, with a request for translation into
Lojban.

> I, for example, looked for the only thing I know of that
> relates to layers being removed from the sun, and thus came up
> with you discussing what happens when a star goes nova.  This
> of course fit in well with a discussion about the sun being
> consumed.  But your concept is more specialized, and clearly
> has to be a purposeful removal (presumably by an agentive
> process, but then I never read the SF story).

The SF story doesn't exist yet, but I hope it will include some
Lojban text.

Anyway, when I looked at the x1 place of {vimcu}, I thought
it fit the concept, so I used {vi'u} in the lujvo.

> > Of the lujvo I've proposed in this thread, two of them -
> > {solsetyvi'u} & {selxaktei} - don't closely resemble any
> > English word or concept known to me.

I miscounted.  {gimterzbavla} doesn't closely resemble any
English word or concept either.  But we were concentrating on
{solsetyvi'u} by this point.

> Which is why it is risky to coin them without giving the full
> context.

Unfortunately, I simply haven't yet mastered enough of the
Lojban vocabulary to provide that context in Lojban.

> Given the relative rareness of your concepts they may not
> even belong as single words,

Not in the present.  But I'm trying to anticipate lujvo usage
in a fictitious but quasi-realistic future, in which characters
receive a message, in Lojban, from an even more distant future
(although not necessarily _their_ future)....  Look, I cannot
be expected to explain a story that isn't even written yet.  Nor
should I have to defend my desire to coin a futuristic compound.
People who use Lojban will want to coin such compounds on
occasion, so you might as well get used to it!   %^)

Of course, I'm aware that my Lojban is not yet adequate for
composing my message-within-a-story.  But I don't think it's too
early for me to start building the specialized vocabulary that
will be needed.  That vocabulary may well affect my imagination
as I continue to invent the story.

> and in any case probably need to have more terms than you
> have used.

What are the terms that should be added?  Any ideas?  That is
one of the kinds of help I need.

As a reminder, here's the latest revision of the Lojbanic
context in which I proposed the lujvo {solsetyvi'u}:

.i zo solsetyvi'u cu lujvo lesi'o vimcu le barsenta
cidro le solri  .i.a'o lenuzo'e solsetyvi'u nu'o zengau
le solri selxaktei

I'm not claiming that either the context or the lujvo is
adequate.  It's just a prop to help readers follow along:

> perhaps solri xaksu fanmo fanta

"Preventing the end" {fanmo fanta} of the sun's useful life
would be nice, but IMO is much too ambitious; postponing
or delaying the end seems more realistic, if we can even
mention realism in such an exotic context!   %^)

Can anyone suggest a tanru or lujvo for "postpone" or
"delay"?

> (the selxaksu seems unnecessary since it is the sun
> that is consuming as well as being consumed)

The reason that {solsetyvi'u} would be expected by its
proponents to prolong the useful life of the sun is that
a main sequence star "burns" its hydrogen more quickly if
it is more massive, and less quickly if it is less massive.
So the sun's consumption of its own hydrogen is relevant
to the big picture that I want to draw.

However, the sun's consumption of its own hydrogen, despite
its relevance, is _not_ what I had in mind when I coined
the lujvo {selxaktei}.  I had in mind the phrase "resource
type-of timespan" {selxaksu temci}, which was my attempt to
improve upon the English phrase "useful life", in which the
sun, during the "useful" portion of its "life"-span {temci},
is a resource {selxaksu} for DNA-kind, and not just for the
sun itself.

Perhaps I should have settled for a tanru here, rather than
coining the lujvo {selxaktei}.  But I would probably face
the same problems either way.  How do I specify that I am
referring to the sun primarily as a resource for DNA-kind?

By "DNA-kind" I mean life with the kind of biochemistry
that (probably in reality, and certainly in my yet-to-be-
written story) evolved on the earth.  Right now, DNA-kind
is utterly dependent on the sun as resource.  Right now,
if the sun became unstable, left the main sequence, went
nova, turned into a red giant, etc., DNA-kind would most
likely become extinct.

But I'm not yet sure how to say such things in Lojban.

> What was missing for your definition, however, was the
> usage itself that you intended, which might have made
> things more clear.

That is true.  But it's not too late; the process is
ongoing.

> Still, for all my criticisms, I appreciate your effort and
> compliment you for it.

I need your criticisms & appreciate your compliments.

co'omi'e markl.