Lojban In General

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:42 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

>
> camxes accepts "amliau" and not "mliau"; jbofi'e accepts "mliau" as a word and
> splits "amliau" into a misparse. Whichever one is valid means "meow".

.i mi zmadu nelci zo mliau pe'i

ni'o ki'e .pier. do .io virnu fu'ivla bo facki

ni'o mi'a pu finti zo zi'evla
.i smuni panra zo fu'ivla
.i je ku'i mi'a nelci do'e zo zifre
.i pe'i lo zi'evla cu se krasi lo vrici ca le ca cedra
.i mo pe'i pei doi ro do

mi'e la stela selckiku
mu'o

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On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 12:42 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

> I installed camxes (the compiled jar) and ran it on some words. I gave it all
> the months of the Roman calendar (ianvari, frebuari, martio, prilio, madjio,
> djunio, djulio, avgusto, septembero, oktobero, novmbero, decmbero; kuintili
> (=djulio), sektili (=avgusto), mercedonio (noi setca ke'a lo frebuari)), and
> it accepted them all. Vlatai rejects zo martio bi'o zo djulio.

Right. camxes accepts the CS syllable onset (where S stands for the
semivowels i, u), although there has never been an official decision
one way or the other about this. Why does vlatai reject them? I
thought vlatai was generally more permissive than camxes about these
things.

> "soiombo" (a Mongolian symbol) and "peuence" (the Chilean people of the
> monkey-puzzle tree) it rejects.

It should read them as "so iombo", "pe uence".

Basically, what camxes does is treat the semivowels i/u as onsets and
thus any word that starts with them doesn't require a ".".

> These would be valid if the rule were "The
> second consonant must be next to another consonant when y'y and ybu are
> ignored", but with the current rule, "There must be a consonant cluster in
> the first five letters, ignoring y'y and ybu", they're not. However, it
> considers "soiombo" to break into "so iombo". This I think is incorrect. A
> word beginning with a vowel must be preceded by a pause, else you can't
> tell "so iombo" from "soi ombo". Both programs accept "ricrpeuence".

"soi.ombo" requires a glottal stop. "soiombo" is unambiguously "so iombo".

The rule about "the first five letters" is a bit nonsensical from a
phonological point of view. There is no sensible reason to reject
"ba'auski" if ".a'auski" is accepted.

The camxes rule basically is: if it consists of Lojban non-y syllables
with penultimate stress, it ends in an open syllable, and the initial
part doesn't fall off as a cmavo or slinku'i consonant, then it's a
valid fu'ivla. (Also, the first syllable can't be a consonantal
syllable.)

> camxes rejects "aierne". Its attempt at a parse is simply "a" (".a .ierne" is
> not the start of anything grammatical, as "a" is expecting a sumti to
> follow), even though ".ai .erne" is grammatical.

It's grammatical for example in "zo .a ierne", or "lo'u .a ierne le'u".

In any case, the lexer doesn't care about syntax, it just breaks a
stream of phonemes into words. Whether those words end up forming a
grammatical utterance or not is not a concern for the lexer.

> camxes accepts "amliau" and not "mliau";

Yes, because "am" and "liau" are valid syllables. camxes doesn't like
CCS as syllable onset.

> jbofi'e accepts "mliau" as a word and
> splits "amliau" into a misparse. Whichever one is valid means "meow".

(Although the phonological issues that still have to be officially
settled are relatively few and marginal, the BPFK should make a
decision about them at some point, it probably doesn't look very good
for Lojban that we still haven't made up our mind about them.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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On Saturday 23 January 2010 09:14:05 Jorge Llambías wrote:
> Right. camxes accepts the CS syllable onset (where S stands for the
> semivowels i, u), although there has never been an official decision
> one way or the other about this. Why does vlatai reject them? I
> thought vlatai was generally more permissive than camxes about these
> things.

Apparently because "marti'o" is a lujvo and something to do with the Loglan
compromise orthography.

> It should read them as "so iombo", "pe uence".

It does say "so iombo", but "pe uence" is ungrammatical.

> It's grammatical for example in "zo .a ierne", or "lo'u .a ierne le'u".

True, but a sentence can't begin with ".a ierne", and I didn't put anything
before "a".

> Yes, because "am" and "liau" are valid syllables. camxes doesn't like
> CCS as syllable onset.

The issue is whether "iau" is a triphthong. The only hint in the refgram that
there are triphthongs is "i,iai,i,iai,ion", and unlike the diphthongs where
those that can occur in lujvo are distinguished from those that can't,
there's no list of valid triphthongs. If "iau" is a triphthong, then "mliau"
is one syllable, and a brivla must have at least two.

> (Although the phonological issues that still have to be officially
> settled are relatively few and marginal, the BPFK should make a
> decision about them at some point, it probably doesn't look very good
> for Lojban that we still haven't made up our mind about them.)

Can we get Nora involved? She's the third person on this committee.

Pierre

--
Don't buy a French car in Holland. It may be a citroen.

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On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

> On Saturday 23 January 2010 09:14:05 Jorge Llambías wrote:
>
>> It's grammatical for example in "zo .a ierne", or "lo'u .a ierne le'u".
>
> True, but a sentence can't begin with ".a ierne", and I didn't put anything
> before "a".

The utterance ".a ierne si" is grammatical. But it's true that ".a
ierne" by itself is not.

>> (Although the phonological issues that still have to be officially
>> settled are relatively few and marginal, the BPFK should make a
>> decision about them at some point, it probably doesn't look very good
>> for Lojban that we still haven't made up our mind about them.)
>
> Can we get Nora involved? She's the third person on this committee.

We should probably make a list of outstanding issues. The ones that
come to mind are:

(1) Syllable onsets:

(a) Is the empty onset allowed or not? This affects vowel clusters
such as "oa", "aa", etc. in fu'ivla, which require an empty onset for
the second vowel.

(b) Are Ci/Cu onsets permitted in fu'ivla? Are CCi/CCu onsets
permitted? Are CCCi/CCCu onsets permitted? Are 'i/'u onsets permitted?

(c) Can i/u be onsets if the nucleus is a diphthong? (a.k.a. are
triphthongs allowed?)

(2) Syllable codas: how many consonants are allowed in a syllable
coda? If more than one, are there any special restrictions?

(3) Syllable nuclei: (I don't think there are any issues here.)

(4) cmevla: Are the constraints for cmevla less strict than for
fu'ivla (the ones mentioned above in particular.)

Anything else?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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On Monday 25 January 2010 08:46:54 Jorge Llambías wrote:
> We should probably make a list of outstanding issues. The ones that
> come to mind are:

Can you give examples of words affected by these issues? Preferably meaningful
or found in the Book.

> (1) Syllable onsets:
>
> (a) Is the empty onset allowed or not? This affects vowel clusters
> such as "oa", "aa", etc. in fu'ivla, which require an empty onset for
> the second vowel.

I think it should be. The example "bangrkorea" is in the refgram.

> (b) Are Ci/Cu onsets permitted in fu'ivla? Are CCi/CCu onsets
> permitted? Are CCCi/CCCu onsets permitted? Are 'i/'u onsets permitted?
>
> (c) Can i/u be onsets if the nucleus is a diphthong? (a.k.a. are
> triphthongs allowed?)

There's one occurrence of a triphthong in the refgram, but no list of valid
triphthongs.

> (2) Syllable codas: how many consonants are allowed in a syllable
> coda? If more than one, are there any special restrictions?

I think it should be two, with the restriction that if there are two, the

first has to be in the set . My made-up example is "tarksako"; the

one in the Book is "bongnanba". If "tarksako" is disallowed, I could go
with "traksako" or "tarsako" (or "cinfydenspa").

I tried various versions of these and could not figure out what rule camxes is
using. It allows "tarkmako" but not "tarksako", even though both "ks"
and "km" are allowed medially but not initially. Similarly "bongnanba" but
not "bongbanba".

> (3) Syllable nuclei: (I don't think there are any issues here.)
>
> (4) cmevla: Are the constraints for cmevla less strict than for
> fu'ivla (the ones mentioned above in particular.)

I think that a cmevla should be allowed to end with any consonant cluster that
is permitted medially in a brivla.

> Anything else?

damskrima: vlatai rejects this, both camxes and valfendi allow it.
Max length of consonant clusters. It is possible to make an infinitely long
string of consonants, all pairs of which are initial, such as "ststst...".

What should be counted as a cmavo for purposes of falling off the head of a
brivla? I consider it to be any sequence consisting of at least one vowel,
possibly with apostrophes between vowels, and possibly preceded by a
consonant. Thus "tioprano" breaks up, even though there is no actual
cmavo "tio".

Pierre

--
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

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On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:

> On Monday 25 January 2010 08:46:54 Jorge Llambías wrote:
>
>> (1) Syllable onsets:
>>
>> (a) Is the empty onset allowed or not? This affects vowel clusters
>> such as "oa", "aa", etc. in fu'ivla, which require an empty onset for
>> the second vowel.
>
> I think it should be. The example "bangrkorea" is in the refgram.

Yes, though John Cowan has said he regrets having included it, so we
could eventually consider it an erratum.

The argument against such clusters is the very existence of the
apostrophe in Lojban: Loglan allowed those clusters, Lojban introduced
the apostrophe for the sole purpose of breaking up those clusters, and
then Lojban reintroduces those clusters again, such as "ea" to compete
against "e'a" and "eia"? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

>> (b) Are Ci/Cu onsets permitted in fu'ivla? Are CCi/CCu onsets
>> permitted? Are CCCi/CCCu onsets permitted? Are 'i/'u onsets permitted?

Some examples from jbovlaste:

ab,nie,na
sar,gue,ia
per,vu,'ui
krio,fla

I don't find any example with CCCi/CCCu but I only made a superficial check.
camxes should accept the first two, but not the last two.

>> (c) Can i/u be onsets if the nucleus is a diphthong? (a.k.a. are
>> triphthongs allowed?)
>
> There's one occurrence of a triphthong in the refgram, but no list of valid
> triphthongs.

The list in any case is limited to the eight: iai, iau, iei, ioi, uai,
uau, uei, uoi.
It wouldn't make sense to allow some but not all of them, or to allow
any more than those, given the list of diphthongs already allowed. For
example allowing "iai" but not "iau" would not make sense, or allowing
"ieu" as a triphthong given that "eu" is not allowed as a diphthong
would not make sense.

>> (2) Syllable codas:  how many consonants are allowed in a syllable
>> coda? If more than one, are there any special restrictions?
>
> I think it should be two, with the restriction that if there are two, the

> first has to be in the set . My made-up example is "tarksako"; the

> one in the Book is "bongnanba". If "tarksako" is disallowed, I could go
> with "traksako" or "tarsako" (or "cinfydenspa").
>
> I tried various versions of these and could not figure out what rule camxes is
> using. It allows "tarkmako" but not "tarksako", even though both "ks"
> and "km" are allowed medially but not initially. Similarly "bongnanba" but
> not "bongbanba".

That's odd indeed. It should disallow all of them. It appears as if it
was allowing tar,km,a,ko and bon,gn,an,ba but I don't see why. A
consonantal syllable should not be able to be followed by a syllable
without an onset.

Maybe the implementation of camxes you are using is not based on the
current morphology as it appears in
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/BPFK+Section:+PEG+Morphology+Algorithm
(or maybe I'm missing something there.)

>> (3) Syllable nuclei: (I don't think there are any issues here.)
>>
>> (4) cmevla: Are the constraints for cmevla less strict than for
>> fu'ivla (the ones mentioned above in particular.)
>
> I think that a cmevla should be allowed to end with any consonant cluster that
> is permitted medially in a brivla.

If weird codas are allowed for the last syllable, shouldn't they be
allowed for any syllable, rather than just the last one?

>> Anything else?
>
> damskrima: vlatai rejects this, both camxes and valfendi allow it.

Right, three valid syllables: dam,skri,ma

> Max length of consonant clusters. It is possible to make an infinitely long
> string of consonants, all pairs of which are initial, such as "ststst...".

camxes does not allow the combination of ts/tc/dz/dj with other
consonants in an onset. The only consonant-cluster onsets that it
accepts (besides those four) must fall within the pattern:

(s,c,z,j) (p,t,k,f,x,b,d,g,v,m,n) (r,l)

so the maximum length for an onset is three consonants.

> What should be counted as a cmavo for purposes of falling off the head of a
> brivla? I consider it to be any sequence consisting of at least one vowel,
> possibly with apostrophes between vowels, and possibly preceded by a
> consonant. Thus "tioprano" breaks up, even though there is no actual
> cmavo "tio".

camxes does the same thing, it considers "tio" a cmavo form even
though there are no actual such cmavo. A good argument could be made
against considering these as valid cmavo forms though, since otherwise
they would seem to be preferrable over the longer CVhV forms. (That is
in fact the reason camxes does not consider "tio" a valid rafsi form.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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