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''For a full list of issues, see '''[[zo'ei la'e "lu ju'i lobypli li'u"]]'''.''<br/>
                                                                     
''Previous issue: '''[[me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 17 moi]]'''.''<br/>
                                 
 
                                 
__TOC__
                                 
 
                                 
<pre style="text-align: center">
                                 
Number 18 - May-June 1993
                                 
Copyright 1993, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
                                 
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA (703)385-0273
                                 
Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.
                                 
 
                      Number 18 - May-June 1993
Logfest 93 - July 9-12
          Copyright 1993, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
 
          2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA (703)385-0273
 
  Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for
rafsi List Revised and Baselined
                purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.
DETAILS IN NEWS SECTION
</pre>
 
ju'i lobypli (JL) is the quarterly journal of The Logical Language Group, Inc., known in these pages as la lojbangirz. la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of completing and spreading the logical human language "Lojban - A Realization of Loglan" (commonly called "Lojban"), and informing the community about logical languages in general.
 
la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Your donations (not contributions to your voluntary balance) are tax-deductible on U.S. and most state income taxes. Donors are notified at the end of each year of their total deductible donations.
 
For purposes of terminology, "Lojban" refers to a specific version of a logical human language, the generic language and associated research project having been called "Loglan" since its invention by Dr. James Cooke Brown in 1954. Statements referring to "Loglan/Lojban" refer to both the generic language and to Lojban as a specific instance of that language. The Lojban version of Loglan was created as an alternative because Dr. Brown and his organization claims copyright on everything in his version, including each individual word of the vocabulary. The Lojban vocabulary and grammar and all language definition materials, by contrast, are public domain. Anyone may freely use Lojban for any purpose without permission or royalty. la lojbangirz. believes that such free usage is a necessary condition for an engineered language like Loglan/Lojban to become a true human language, and to succeed in the various goals that have been proposed for its use.
 
Press run for this issue of ju'i lobypli: 130. We now have about 720 people receiving our publications, and 250 more awaiting textbook publication.
 
''' Important Notices '''
 
Important: Your mailing label indicates the last issue of your subscription. If that issue is JL18, we need to hear from you, preferably with money for another year's subscription (US$28 North America, US$35 elsewhere).
 
Note the new network address on page 2 for the Planned Languages Server if you wish to obtain electronic copies of our materials. The address published last issue turned out to be incorrect.


''' Your Mailing Label '''


                        Logfest 93 - July 9-12
Your mailing label reports your current mailing status, and your current voluntary balance including this issue. Please notify us of changes in your activity/interest level. Balances reflect contributions received thru 15 June 1993. Mailing codes (and approximate balance needs) are:


<pre>
Activity/Interest Level:    Highest Package Received (Price Each)    Other codes:
B - Observer                0 - Introductory Materials ($5)          JL JL Subscription ($28-$35/yr)
C - Active Supporter        1 - Word Lists and Language Description ($15) (followed by expiration issue #)
D - Lojban Student          2 - Language Design Information ($10)    * indicates subscription prepaid
E - Lojban Practitioner      3 - Draft Teaching Materials ($30)        LK LK Subscription ($5-$6/- yr)
R Review Copy (no charge)                                              UP Automatic Updates (>$20 balance)
</pre>


                  rafsi List Revised and Baselined
Please keep us informed of changes in your mailing address, and US subscribers are asked to provide ZIP+4 codes whenever you know them.
                      DETAILS IN NEWS SECTION
                                 
    ju'i lobypli (JL) is the quarterly journal of The Logical
Language Group, Inc., known in these pages as la lojbangirz.  la
lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of
completing and spreading the logical human language "Lojban - A
Realization of Loglan" (commonly called "Lojban"), and informing the
community about logical languages in general.
    la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section
501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.  Your donations (not
contributions to your voluntary balance) are tax-deductible on U.S.
and most state income taxes.  Donors are notified at the end of each
year of their total deductible donations.
    For purposes of terminology, "Lojban" refers to a specific
version of a logical human language, the generic language and
associated research project having been called "Loglan" since its
invention by Dr. James Cooke Brown in 1954.  Statements referring to
"Loglan/Lojban" refer to both the generic language and to Lojban as a
specific instance of that language.  The Lojban version of Loglan was
created as an alternative because Dr. Brown and his organization
claims copyright on everything in his version, including each
individual word of the vocabulary.  The Lojban vocabulary and grammar
and all language definition materials, by contrast, are public domain.
Anyone may freely use Lojban for any purpose without permission or
royalty.  la lojbangirz. believes that such free usage is a necessary
condition for an engineered language like Loglan/Lojban to become a
true human language, and to succeed in the various goals that have
been proposed for its use.
    Press run for this issue of ju'i lobypli: 130.  We now have about
720 people receiving our publications, and 250 more awaiting textbook
publication.
                          Important Notices
                                 
    Important:  Your mailing label indicates the last issue of your
subscription.  If that issue is JL18, we need to hear from you,
preferably with money for another year's subscription (US$28 North
America, US$35 elsewhere).
                                  2
    Note the new network address on page 2 for the Planned Languages
Server if you wish to obtain electronic copies of our materials.  The
address published last issue turned out to be incorrect.


                          Your Mailing Label
Contents of This Issue
Your mailing label reports your current mailing status, and your
current voluntary balance including this issue.  Please notify us of
changes in your activity/interest level.  Balances reflect contri-
butions received thru 15 June 1993.  Mailing codes (and approximate
balance needs) are:


Activity/Interest Level:                      Highest Package Received
The biggest news this issue is the baselining of the rafsi list, the last major piece of the language to be frozen before dictionary publication. Two articles this issue deal with the Lojban rafsi, and the latest change, and the revised list is included with the issue.
(Price Each)    Other codes:
B - Observer    0 - Introductory Materials ($5) JL    JL Subscription
($28-$35/yr)
C - Active Supporter                          1 - Word Lists and
Language Description ($15)                      (followed by
expiration issue #)
D - Lojban Student                            2 - Language Design
Information ($10)                            *  indicates
subscription prepaid
E - Lojban Practitioner                      3 - Draft Teaching
Materials ($30)  LK                          LK Subscription ($5-$6/-
yr)
                                              R  Review Copy (no
charge)
                                              UP  Automatic Updates
(>$20 balance)


Please keep us informed of changes in your mailing address, and US
As soon as this issue goes to the printers, I will be starting to work intensively on dictionary publication, with the intent to have something to show off at LogFest, our annual gathering here in July. See the news section for more on the dictionary work, and on LogFest 93. Because JL issues are taking 1-2 months to prepare, I am not going to be able to get JL on the hoped for quarterly schedule and also get the dictionary and textbook published this year. As such, I will not start work on JL19 until September, to enable me to work all summer on getting the dictionary out. I also had to cut off work on this issue rather abruptly, though hopefully without too much loss in quality. Details in the news section.
subscribers are asked to provide ZIP+4 codes whenever you know them.


                                  3
This issue summarizes all grammar changes proposed for the dictionary rebaselining, and the revised E-BNF form of the grammar. Articles detail the rationale behind several of the changes, with a focus on the most significant change relating to relative clauses. A selection of articles deal with usage issues that have come up on Lojban List, and we have a couple of more philosophical discussions on the goals of the language. As is usual, material derived from the Lojban List computer, as well as from the 'conlang' mailing list, is edited, revised, and corrected from the original.
                        Contents of This Issue
    The biggest news this issue is the baselining of the rafsi list,
the last major piece of the language to be frozen before dictionary
publication.  Two articles this issue deal with the Lojban rafsi, and
the latest change, and the revised list is included with the issue.
    As soon as this issue goes to the printers, I will be starting to
work intensively on dictionary publication, with the intent to have
something to show off at LogFest, our annual gathering here in July.
See the news section for more on the dictionary work, and on LogFest
93.  Because JL issues are taking 1-2 months to prepare, I am not
going to be able to get JL on the hoped for quarterly schedule and
also get the dictionary and textbook published this year.  As such, I
will not start work on JL19 until September, to enable me to work all
summer on getting the dictionary out.  I also had to cut off work on
this issue rather abruptly, though hopefully without too much loss in
quality.  Details in the news section.
    This issue summarizes all grammar changes proposed for the
dictionary rebaselining, and the revised E-BNF form of the grammar.
Articles detail the rationale behind several of the changes, with a
focus on the most significant change relating to relative clauses. A
selection of articles deal with usage issues that have come up on
Lojban List, and we have a couple of more philosophical discussions on
the goals of the language. As is usual, material derived from the
Lojban List computer, as well as from the 'conlang' mailing list, is
edited, revised, and corrected from the original.
    There are 3 longer Lojban texts in this issue, one related to the
ckafybarja project discussed in JL17.  The discussions of grammar and
usage issues., though have a lot of Lojban text in them, perhaps as
much as in the longer pieces.  I made an effort to update all lujvo in
this issue to the new rafsi baseline, so that you can use the lists
accompanying this issue to interpret them.  However, since I did this
manually, don't be surprised if I missed one or two.


There are 3 longer Lojban texts in this issue, one related to the ckafybarja project discussed in JL17. The discussions of grammar and usage issues., though have a lot of Lojban text in them, perhaps as much as in the longer pieces. I made an effort to update all lujvo in this issue to the new rafsi baseline, so that you can use the lists accompanying this issue to interpret them. However, since I did this manually, don't be surprised if I missed one or two.
<pre>
                           Table of Contents
                           Table of Contents
Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms                                    ---3
Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms                                    ---3
Line 152: Line 84:
  Lojban; On le and lo and Existence; A Heated Exchange?          ---53
  Lojban; On le and lo and Existence; A Heated Exchange?          ---53


                                  4
Language Goals:  Lojban and Metaphydsical Bias; Sapir-Whorfian
Language Goals:  Lojban and Metaphydsical Bias; Sapir-Whorfian
  Thoughts; Metacognition-friendly Languages                      ---61
  Thoughts; Metacognition-friendly Languages                      ---61
Line 159: Line 90:
  1993; 06/01/93 Lojban baseline rafsi list
  1993; 06/01/93 Lojban baseline rafsi list


                      Computer Net Information
</pre>
    Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files
 
(including things for JL publication) to la lojbangirz./Bob at:
''' Computer Net Information '''
                          lojbab@grebyn.com
 
Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files (including things for JL publication) to la lojbangirz./Bob at:
 
lojbab@grebyn.com
 
(This supersedes the prior "snark" address.)
(This supersedes the prior "snark" address.)
    You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around
 
70 subscribers). Send a single line message (automatically processed)
You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around 70 subscribers). Send a single line message (automatically processed) containing only:
containing only:
 
"subscribe lojban yourfirstname yourlastname" to:
"subscribe lojban yourfirstname yourlastname" to:
                    listserv@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
 
listserv@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
 
If you have problems needing human intervention, send to:
If you have problems needing human intervention, send to:
                lojban-list-request@snark.thyrsus.com
 
lojban-list-request@snark.thyrsus.com
 
Send traffic for the mailing list to:
Send traffic for the mailing list to:
                    lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
    Please keep us informed if your network mailing address changes.
    Compuserve subscribers can also participate.  Precede any of the
above addresses with INTERNET:  and use your normal Compuserve mail
facility.  If you want to participate on Lojban List, you should be
prepared to read your mail at least every couple of days; otherwise
your mailbox fills up and you are dropped from the mailing-list.
FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although the connection is
not especially robust.  Write to us for details if you don't know how
to access the Internet network.
    A good portion of our materials are available on-line from the
Planned Languages Server (PLS).  See JL16, or send the messages "help"
and "send lojban readme" to the server address:
                        langserv@columbia.edu
This is a new address since JL17 was published.


                                  5
lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
 
Please keep us informed if your network mailing address changes.


  The following explicitly iden-    le'avla - words borrowed from
Compuserve subscribers can also participate. Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET: and use your normal Compuserve mail facility. If you want to participate on Lojban List, you should be prepared to read your mail at least every couple of days; otherwise your mailbox fills up and you are dropped from the mailing-list. FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although the connection is not especially robust. Write to us for details if you don't know how to access the Internet network.
tifies people who are referred to  other languages (there are people
by initials in JL. 'Athelstan' is who would like to see another
that person's real name, used in  term, with a better metaphor, for
his public life, and is not a      this concept, but "le'avla" will
pseudonym.                        remain a valid term for the
  'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford,  indefinite future; suggestions are
Professor of Logic and Philosophy  welcome);
at the University of Missouri -      brivla - Lojban predicate words,
St. Louis and Vice-President of la consisting of gismu, lujvo, and
lojbangirz.; he is usually        le'avla; (a few cmavo have the
addressed as 'pc' by the commu-    grammar of a brivla);
nity.                                tanru - Lojban 'binary'
  'Bob', 'Lojbab' - Bob            metaphors, the most productive and
LeChevalier - President of la loj- creative expression form of the
bangirz., and editor of ju'i      language, unambiguous in
lobypli and le lojbo karni.        syntax/grammar, but ambiguous in
  'Nora' - Nora LeChevalier -      semantics/meaning;  tanru
Secretary/Treasurer of la lojban-  generally have a modifying portion
girz., Bob's wife, author of      (generally on the left) that
LogFlash.                          serves the function of an English
  'JCB', 'Dr. Brown' - Dr. James  adjective or adverb, and a
Cooke Brown, inventor of the      modified portion (on the right).
language, and founder of the        sumti - the arguments of a
Loglan project.                    logical predicate;
  'The Institute', 'TLI' - The      selbri - Lojban predicates which
Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's      indicate a relation among one or
organization for spreading his    more sumti.  A selbri is most
version of Loglan, which we call  often a brivla or tanru; the
'Institute Loglan'.                concept was formerly called
  'Loglan' - refers to the generic "kunbri" in error in some of our
language or language project, of  early publications;
which 'Lojban' is the most          bridi - Lojban predications, the
successful version, and 'Institute basic grammatical structure of the
Loglan' another.  'Loglan/Lojban'  language; a bridi expresses a
is used in discussions about      complete relationship:  the selbri
Lojban to make it particularly    expresses the relation and the
clear that the statement applies  sumti express the various things
to the generic language as well.  being related;
  'PLS' - The Planned Languages      selma'o - grammatical categories
Server, a no-charge computer-      of Lojban words; the basis of the
network-accessed distribution      unambiguous formal grammar of the
center for materials on Lojban    language. Traditionally and
(and other artificial languages).  erroneously called "lexeme" in the
See pg. 2 for email address.      Loglan community.  These
                                  categories typically have a name
  Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms  derived from one word in that
  Following are definitions of    grammatical category; the name is
frequently used Lojban terms.      all capitals, except that an
Longer explanations are in the     apostrophe is replaced by a small
Overview of Lojban.               letter 'h' (this is an artifact of
  cmavo - Lojban structure words  the computer language "C" in which
  gismu - Lojban root words;      the formal Lojban grammar is
currently 1342;                    defined for the YACC processor; C
  rafsi - short combining-forms    forbids apostrophes in 'tokens'
for the gismu;                    representing single words.
  lujvo - compound words built
from rafsi;


                                  6
A good portion of our materials are available on-line from the Planned Languages Server (PLS). See JL16, or send the messages "help" and "send lojban readme" to the server address:


langserv@columbia.edu


              News                publication probably in October,
This is a new address since JL17 was published.
            JL Status              or perhaps even November).
                                  Hopefully the dictionary will be
  I remain short of my goal of    done by then, and maybe (but not
publishing every three months, at  likely) the textbook.  I'm sure
least partially because getting    that the decision to put book
all of the mailings out the door  publication higher priority than
last issue took more than a month  regular JL publication is one
in the first place.  But hopefully which the community will find
4 months is better than the delays acceptable, provided that we
we had been having.                maintain some minimum publication
  I delayed a little in hopes of  frequency; 3 issues this year,
seeing some more submissions for  while not the desired 4, is
the ckafybarja (coffeehouse)      considerably better than we did
writing project, especially from  the last two years.
those of you who first became        This delay will also serve to
aware of the project with the      give more time for people to
publication of last issue.  Nick  submit writings for the ckafybarja
Nicholas revised one piece that    project, per the above discussion,
was in progress when JL17 was pub- before the next decision point.
lished.  Then, at the last minute, Let's see some more participation
he submitted a character          this time.
description on behalf of a friend.  As partial recompense for the
But otherwise, alas, only silence. delay, this issue is larger than
As a result, the period for        intended.  Our prices were set on
submission of characters and/or    an assumed average of 60-70 pages
setting ideas has been extended    per issue, but both of the last
indefinitely, until the various    two issues have been longer than
people who have contributed feel  that.  I will wait till next issue
that enough has been submitted to  to decide, but if issues continue
either vote, or to at least turn  to run long, I may have to in-
fully to the Lojban writing        crease the subscription price by
endeavor that is intended.        about $1 per issue ($4 per 4
  Unfortunately, this issue of JL  issues) as of next issue.  Orders
has taken even longer to produce,  and renewals until then (up to a
almost 2 months from the day I    maximum 8 issues prepaid) will be
started.  And I had thought that  at the rate of US$28 for 4 issues
the issue was partially done when  (US) and US$35 overseas.
I started.  Family life,            Because the rafsi change
supporting the computer network    baseline took place at a date just
discussion, and administrative    before publication, and because
tasks have kept me from working    the issue was so long already,
efficiently, and the types of      I've put a minimum of Lojban text
materials we are publishing are    in this issue.  Next issue will
taking longer to edit than older  probably have quite a bit more
issues, because of the need to    text, since Nora is working on a
ensure clarity and accuracy of    program that will convert lujvo
technical content.                based on pre-baseline rafsi to the
  The books have been too long    new baseline.
delayed while I tried to get JL on
a more frequent schedule.  We've                   
improved the JL frequency, though
not to the quarterly level I want,
or need in order to get 2nd class
mailing from the Postal Service.
As such, I have decided to cut off
work on this JL and go directly to
work on the books for the whole
summer. I will not be starting
JL19 until September (which means


                                  7
The following explicitly identifies people who are referred to by initials in JL. 'Athelstan' is that person's real name, used in his public life, and is not a pseudonym.


'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the University of Missouri - St. Louis and Vice-President of la lojbangirz.; he is usually addressed as 'pc' by the community.


          Subscriptions            the Lojban books reasonable, since
'Bob', 'Lojbab' - Bob LeChevalier - President of la lojbangirz., and editor of ju'i lobypli and le lojbo karni.
                                  small print-runs alone will add
  We are now fully on the          several dollars to the price of
subscription system, and for the  each book, and we cannot afford a
most part, people who have not    larger print run.  (Expected
sent a request for JL are no      publication costs will run around
longer receiving it.  We have a    $10,000.  Donors welcome!)
slightly smaller subscriber list                   
than last issue, but we know that              LogFest 93
everyone getting the issue really 
wants it.                            The dates for LogFest 93, and
  I now have to get publication    the annual meeting of la
solidly onto the quarterly        lojbangirz. has been set.  The
schedule, in order to get 2nd      gathering will take place at
class status, which means it      Lojbab's house in Fairfax VA (per
probably won't happen this year    the la lojbangirz. address and
while book publication takes      phone number) the weekend of 9-12
precedence.  Until then, people    July 1993 (we traditionally open
will get JL a little quicker, via  up on Friday, but schedule few
first class mail, and of course we organized activities for that day;
are going to still be losing some  people can feel free to arrive on
money as a result.                Saturday the 10th, to come for
  As of the publication date, we  only one day, etc.).  As in pre-
have around 120 JL subscribers.    vious years, families are welcome,
For about 25 of these, JL18 is    although we are requesting that
listed as their last issue, but I  attendees bring sleeping bags,
expect at least half of these to  etc. if possible.  One or more
renew their subscription based on  tents will be set up in the yard
the experience of the last 4      as applicable to ensure plenty of
months.  Thus, the number of (all  sleeping space.
paid) subscribers will drop to      The invitation to families is a
around 110 for JL19, and seems    bit more meaningful this year,
likely to stabilize at around that since we now have two kids.  Child
level until books are published    care duties will presumably be
(when it hopefully will increase). shared among the relevant adults
US recipients will continue to get to maximize people's abilities to
their issue by first class mail.  participate in activities.
                                    Interest in participating in
            Finances              LogFest seems a bit higher than in
                                  previous years, perhaps because
  We continue to expend money      more people believe that they can
faster than we are taking it in,  do something with the language,
but the rate of hemorrhage has    and that books to help learn and
slowed (at least until this issue  use the language will shortly be
goes out). We already had a      coming out.  Preliminary positive
deficit for 1993 of a couple of    responses from around 20 people
thousand dollars by April, which  suggest that we will set a new
has been remedied by the delay in  turnout record this year.
publication, and significant        There is no required admission
donations from Jeff Prothero      fee for LogFest.  Our costs for
(totalling $1500 so far this year, putting on LogFest have averaged
or almost 1/2 of our income).  We  $20-$30 per attendee in previous
will still need a fund raising    years, and we ask attendees to
drive in order to make it through  donate at least enough to cover
the year.  I intend to ask for    their share if possible.  But we
donations in the letter that      don't want money to stand in the
announces publication of the first way of your attending if you are
book.  Substantial donations      interested in coming.
and/or massive orders will also be  As is typical for LogFests, we
necessary to keep the price for    expect that this year will consist


                                  8
'Nora' - Nora LeChevalier - Secretary/Treasurer of la lojbangirz., Bob's wife, author of LogFlash.


'JCB', 'Dr. Brown' - Dr. James Cooke Brown, inventor of the language, and founder of the Loglan project.


of mostly English-language        (with a 5th planning to start
'The Institute', 'TLI' - The Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's organization for spreading his version of Loglan, which we call 'Institute Loglan'.
activities, with an emphasis on    regular particpation this month),
Lojban-teaching and learning      continues to meet, and do a little
activities for those new or less  conversation each week in Lojban.
experienced in the language.      We seem to have plateaued in skill
There will probably be significant level, since only a couple of us
discussion of the ckafybarja      are spending much time on Lojban
Project, which was significantly  on other days of the week, and my
developed at last year's          activities are not the type that
gathering.                        enhance my Lojban skills.
  Several Lojbanists have            Bradford Group - Colin Fine's
expressed serious interest in      group in Bradford, UK, continues
having a major emphasis on Lojban  to grow and to meet regularly, and
conversation at this gathering,    from postings on the net, is
and we believe that there are      probably achieving a
enough people skilled enough in    sophistication in Lojban use at
the language that we can do this,  least comparable to us in DC.
while providing mentoring/tutoring There are 3 participants at this
to those who are unable to un-    writing.
derstand what is being said          UK LogFest - Colin Fine and Iain
without help.                      Alexander have been actively
  We are also trying to arrange    recruiting Lojbanists in the
international Lojban conversation  United Kingdom, and the numbers
during LogFest, most likely by    are growing significantly, now
live 'interaction' on the computer approximately 40.  In addition, a
networks with Colin Fine and other higher percentage of British
British Lojbanists, and Nick      Lojbanists are active students of
Nicholas in Australia, using the  the language, whereas many
"IRC" function (see 'Other News'   American Lojbanists seem to be
below).  Those not able to attend  holding back on learning the lan-
LogFest, but who have Internet    guage.
access may want to contact us at    As a result of the increased
lojbab@grebyn.com prior to        numbers, Colin and Iain proposed
LogFest, and we will try to set    that a LogFest gathering be held
some definite times, so that you  in the UK this year, and this idea
can also participate in these      met with ready agreement from
sessions.                         other Lojbanists.  At publication,
  While the books will not be pub- it appears that the UK LogFest
lished before LogFest, I will be  will be held in September,
making a major effort to have      probably at Colin's house in
copies of some or all of the      Bradford.  Lojbanists throughout
books-in-progress available for   the UK, and indeed all of Europe,
people to look at, and possibly to are encouraged to attend.
use during Lojban sessions.        Independent of JL publication,
  The annual meeting will take    when a date for this LogFest is
place on 11 July 1993 at 10:30 AM. firmly set, we will try to send
At this point, there is much less  notice to all European Lojbanists
on the agenda than in previous    of the details for this gathering.
years, and we are hoping that this  Colin is also planning a
means that the meeting will be    gathering the weekend of the
shorter than usual.  (People plan- American LogFest, as a 'dry run'
ning to attend who would like to  for the bigger event, and
see a policy topic discussed at    Lojbanists are welcome to visit
the meeting are welcome to suggest that weekend as well.
agenda items.)                      For further details, please
                                  contact Colin Fine at (44) 274
            Other News            733680 (home) or 274 733466 x3915
                                  (work), or by mail at 33 Pemberton
  DC Weekly Group - The DC weekly  Drive, Bradford, West Yorkshire
group, consisting of 4 Lojbanists  BD7 1RA, UK


                                  9
'Loglan' - refers to the generic language or language project, of which 'Lojban' is the most successful version, and 'Institute Loglan' another. 'Loglan/Lojban' is used in discussions about Lojban to make it particularly clear that the statement applies to the generic language as well.


'PLS' - The Planned Languages Server, a no-charge computer-network-accessed distribution center for materials on Lojban (and other artificial languages). See pg. 2 for email address.


  CIX - A possible bolster to      TLI has apparently set up a
== Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms ==
Colin's efforts to build a UK      computer network mailing list, but
Lojban group was the formation    people who have subscribed to it
within the last couple of months  report no activity.
of a Lojban discussion group on      TLI may be nearing completion of
the UK computer network 'CIX'.    their own dictionary revision,
This group has grown rapidly, and  which will be issued in electronic
is reported to have some 25        form (a price of $50 has been
participants.  Lojban List traffic mentioned).  They are also
is echoed to this group, and Colin reporting work on a substantial
plans to obtain CIX access later  revision on the rules of their
this year to assist those          language version, in order to make
interested in studying Lojban in  it, like Lojban, truly 'self-
furthering their progress.        segregating' at the word level
  IRC - Colin Fine, Nick Nicholas, (i.e., unambiguity demands that
and Mark Shoulson started a        you always be able to break a
pattern of using the computer      stream of Loglan/Lojban sounds
network system called "Internet    down into individual words
Relay Chat" or IRC, in order to    uniquely; the TLI language version
enable 'live' Lojban conversation  has been seriously defective in
between Lojbanists otherwise      this area).
isolated.  A group of Lojbanists    This will be the last issue
is thus now meeting irregularly on containing a regular report on
the computer networks to converse  TLI; we will, of course, continue
in Lojban, recently including      to report any real news about the
David Young and Sylvia Rutiser    organization that I receive either
from the DC Lojban group.  If you  through official or unofficial
are on the Internet with access to channels.  But with the end of the
the IRC function, and want to      legal battle, there seems to be
participate, contact us by e-mail  little interest among the Lojban
per page 2.                        community in hearing about TLI, so
  As described above, we are      long as they seem to be avoiding
hoping to use the IRC facility in  resolution of our differences.
conjunction with LogFest, to bring                 
more people into the activities              Book Status
here.                             
  Legal - The trademark on          Work continues on the books, but
'Loglan' has now been officially  we cannot report any completion
cancelled, in accordance with the  dates yet.  Highest priority
court order following our legal    remains the dictionary/reference,
victory on this issue.  TLI did    and that occupies most of Lojbab's
not include the trademark claim in time in between JL issues, along
the first publication after the    with the administrative tasks in-
cancellation.                      volved in keeping the organization
  We have now paid off the legal  running (including responding to
debt, with money contributed by    orders and questions from the
Lojbab and Jeff Prothero.          community by mail).
  The Loglan Institute - There is  Unfortunately, these latter tasks
little to report about the Loglan  continue to take too much time,
Institute these days; not much    with the inevitable continued
seems to be going on.  The        delays.  There is some significant
organization continues to exist,  progress though.  In this issue,
and may be gaining supporters,    however, are two reports on the
although at considerable expense.  dictionary/reference:  an outline,
TLI had an advertisement in the    and a sample discussing our
April 1993 Scientific American,    approach to doing the English-
although they reported in Lognet  order portion of the dictionary.
that they spent an amount for the    As the outline shows, the
ad that would take an enormous    contents of the reference book
response in order to break even.  have swollen to the point that we


                                  10
Following are definitions of frequently used Lojban terms. Longer explanations are in the Overview of Lojban. cmavo - Lojban structure words


'''gismu''' - Lojban root words; currently 1342;


are strongly considering issuing  dictionary reference.  As soon as
'''rafsi''' - short combining-forms for the gismu;
the reference as two books - one  these issues are decided, the
more of a reference per se, while  gismu list will be split into two
the other is a pure dictionary of  forms, the current form that is
English-Lojban and Lojban-English, intended for use with LogFlash,
emphasizing content words.  A      and a version oriented towards
major reason for this has been    dictionary formatting.  Once we
Nick Nicholas's excellent and      have two lists, keeping them
extensive work on lujvo, which    matching with each other will be a
promises to give us several thou-  substantial requirement.  In case
sand entries in each direction in  of conflict, the dictionary format
the dictionary if it is completed. listing will be presumed to have
Nick is also writing a paper      precedence.
describing his treatment of place 
structures in lujvo-making, which                rafsi
will also be included in the     
reference book.                      We are baselining the rafsi
  John Cowan has completed a      list, as changed and published in
revision of the entire content of  this issue, effective June 1,
the draft textbook lessons,        1993.  We had intended to have the
reorganizing the materials and    baseline effective with the book
updating them to the current      publication, but the books aren't
language.  The results will be    out, and the pending change has
merged with the new work that      had a noticeable effect on
Lojbab has done towards a          people's willingness to make and
textbook, and will then result in  use lujvo, as well as to write in
the draft textbook.                Lojban in general.  Since we
  John also has continued writing  expect no changes in the few
his survey papers covering the    months before the book comes out,
entirety of the language from the  it seems logical to make the
standpoint of the grammar, which  change effective now.  We are is-
will be assembled into the Lojban  suing a new list of rafsi as an
Reference Grammar.  This still    attachment to this issue, in all
will be the last of the scheduled  of the various orders typically
books to be completed, since John  used by Lojbanists, and including
has several papers left to write,  the lujvo-making algorithm now ex-
and all of the papers must yet be  cluding le'avla lujvo, which are
reviewed by several people before  handled by inserting "zei" between
they are finalized.                components, with no rafsi used.
                                  The place structures are not in-
                                  cluded in the rafsi list (a full
  Language Development Status    gismu list in both Lojban and
                                  keyword order, would be larger
              gismu                than this issue).
                                    Included in this issue is a
  Last issue we noted adding of 4  discussion of why the Lojban rafsi
new gismu to support the new      system works the way it does, and
international metric prefixes, but a report indicating why the
did not list the words.  They are  changes were made and how we went
(with the international prefix in  about making the changes.  Greg
parentheses):                      Higley also discusses his ideas on
gocti  10-24  (yocto-)            lujvo-making, and gives some
gotro  1024 (yotta-)              samples of the words he has in-
zepti  10-21  (zepto-)            vented.  (Other Lojbanists are
zetro  1021 (zetta-)              invited to submit lujvo that you
  The major work on the gismu list have coined, along with
continues to be the resolution of  commentary/explanations of how you
a few open issues on place        came to choose those words).
structures.  These issues will be    Nora is integrating ad hoc
decided as we prepare the          software programs into a software


                                  11
'''lujvo''' - compound words built from rafsi;


'''le'avla''' - words borrowed from other languages (there are people who would like to see another term, with a better metaphor, for this concept, but "le'avla" will remain a valid term for the indefinite future; suggestions are welcome);


capability to correct and revise    The summary of proposed changes,
'''brivla''' - Lojban predicate words, consisting of gismu, lujvo, and le'avla; (a few cmavo have the grammar of a brivla);
older texts written with the      which may be written rather
earlier rafsi list.  The current  technically for some readers,
procedure is sufficiently          shows that there continue to be
complicated, and the baseline so  minor changes proposed in the
close to publication, that I had  Lojban grammar, nearly all of
to conevrt all lujvo manually this which are extensions to the
time.  Luckily, this issue has    expressive power of the language.
less text than last issue.        As John Cowan continues writing
                                  the papers that will eventually
            Grammar              comprise the Lojban 'reference
                                  grammar', minor problems may be
  This issue contains a complete  discovered that require further
summary of the changes to the      changes.  We are hoping that all
Lojban grammar that are pending,  of these will be found before the
and an attachment includes the    first book is published, when the
revised E-BNF notation form of the official rebaselining will take
Lojban grammar incorporating those effect.
changes.  The grammar is ef-        On the other hand, these changes
fectively being rebaselined with  are so minor that almost none of
this publication, as we are using  them affect any text written thus
a parser incorporating the changes far.  Some changes enable new
to evaluate Lojban text, and do    usages where it was found that
not otherwise intend to continue  existing forms were leading to
using the previous grammar        unacceptable semantic situations
baseline in any way.  On the other (see the discussions below of
hand, there is still the          relative clauses - change 20, and
possibility of minor corrections  JOI - changes 30 and 31 for
before the official rebaselining  examples of such changes).  As a
in conjunction with book          result of these changes, the
publication.  If you have any      changed semantics of some of the
disagreements with any of the      older forms may render some older
proposed changes, we need to hear  texts as inaccurate, even while
from you as soon as possible, but  still being grammatical.
we will consider any comments.      This issue also contains edited
  The previous version of the E-  discussions that led to some of
BNF had typographical errors,      the more significant proposals
making it difficult for some to    being adopted.  These proposals
use.  Enough Lojbanists are        often started as discussions of
actively using the E-BNF as a tool Lojban stylistics, and
of studying the language that we  understanding these discussions
felt that this should not wait any will help you gain a better
longer for published revision.    understanding of how you must
Special thanks to John Cowan for  think about what you are trying to
devising and maintaining the E-    say in order to properly phrase
BNF.                              the Lojban.  Note that many of the
  We are not yet publishing a new  participants in these discussions
version of the formal grammar      are not especially advanced, or
definition (the 'YACC' grammar),  skilled, Lojbanists.  It is worth-
which will appear in the published while to plow through the
reference book.  Note that the E-  occasional jargon-ridden passages
BNF, while computer-ish in style,  (there is a limit to how much this
is not the formal definition that  editor feels he can change what
has been verified as unambiguous.  people write, even for the sake of
It was prepared manually from the  clarity) to follow the thought
formal definition, and has been    processes of these new and more
checked many times, but the YACC  advanced Lojban students.  You'll
grammar takes precedence in case  learn a lot about the language and
of disagreement between the two    how it works, and maybe a little
versions.                          bit about how people at different


                                  12
'''tanru''' - Lojban 'binary' metaphors, the most productive and creative expression form of the language, unambiguous in syntax/grammar, but ambiguous in semantics/meaning; tanru generally have a modifying portion (generally on the left) that serves the function of an English adjective or adverb, and a modified portion (on the right).


'''sumti''' - the arguments of a logical predicate;


levels of skill approach problems    However, the nature of the
'''selbri''' - Lojban predicates which indicate a relation among one or more sumti. A selbri is most often a brivla or tanru; the concept was formerly called "kunbri" in error in some of our early publications;
of expression in the language.    language is such that people will
                                  want and need those separate lists
                                  fully as much as any combined
  Lojban Proto-Reference Book -    dictionary list.  When you are
Preliminary Outline with estimated making new words, you need a handy
      page counts by section      list of the gismu and their rafsi,
                                  and other data, especially
  The following is the outline for existing lujvo, would be a dis-
the proto-reference book which    traction.  Similarly, people tend
Lojbab is using as of publication  to use lists of cmavo in selma'o
time.  It includes a description  order as often, if not more often,
of each section contemplated for  than they use alphabetical lists.
inclusion, and an estimated page    The reference will include three
count.  Major tables, forming the  attempts that have been made to
bulk of the book, are the most    devise a thesaurus-style semantic
unpredictable portions in length;  index for Lojban.  None of the
these are marked with asterisks    efforts really can be considered
(*).  The estimated page counts in authoritative, and indeed, Lojbab
the following are in most cases    believes that there is a
just that - estimates (a bar      significant problem with the
indicates a page count for several standard thesaurus technique,
related sections).  The text is    which tends to be more
not in general written in any      noun/adjective-oriented than verb-
final form, although almost all of oriented. In dealing with a
the materials exist in some        predicate language, which is
preliminary form that mostly      probably more like a verb-
requires editing, rather than new  orientation - most of the words
writing.                          have been categorized on the basis
  Due to space and publication    of the meaning of their x1 place,
cost, some of the materials listed which is often not the only place
in the outline may be left out.    that is important to classify.
For example, many people would not  However, semantic indexing of
be that interested in the gismu    the gismu list seems to be
list etymologies, especially since something that most people have
they are in a rather preliminary  some use for, given the number of
form that may make them less easy  people who have reported doing
to use than they eventually will  something of that type on their
be.  On the other hand, the        own.  Since we cannot produce a
features documented in the outline definitive and verified thesaurus
are those that define Lojban      solution, it seems better to pre-
officially, and all may be helpful sent all three efforts, and let
to both language learners and to  the user of the book decide which
people looking over our shoulder  best suits his purpose and his
to examine the quality of the Loj- understanding of the Lojban vocab-
ban design.                        ulary system.  Of course, this
  A study of the outline shows    takes more pages, but we cannot
that, with the exception of the    honestly say, without a lot more
dictionary proper, no section of  research than we are likely to
the book is particularly long,    have time for in the next year,
such that omitting it would        which effort is most accurate
substantially reduce the size of  and/or useful, and what entries in
the books.  The only real tradeoff each list are correct.  Take all
that might make a major difference groupings therefore, with a large
would be to avoid the practice of  grain of salt, recognizing that at
listing most data twice - once in  least one person, the compiler of
the full dictionary, and once in a the particular list, saw a
list specific to the type of      semantic similarity between the
information being presented.      various gismu that are grouped
                                  together.


                                  13
'''bridi''' - Lojban predications, the basic grammatical structure of the language; a bridi expresses a complete relationship: the selbri expresses the relation and the sumti express the various things being related;


'''selma'o''' - grammatical categories of Lojban words; the basis of the unambiguous formal grammar of the language. Traditionally and erroneously called "lexeme" in the Loglan community. These categories typically have a name derived from one word in that grammatical category; the name is all capitals, except that an apostrophe is replaced by a small letter 'h' (this is an artifact of the computer language "C" in which the formal Lojban grammar is defined for the YACC processor; C forbids apostrophes in 'tokens' representing single words.


  Comments on the outline, are of  1      Parser algorithm
== News ==
course welcomed.                    20    *YACC Grammar
                                    8      *selma'o/YACC grammar
Pages Section Description              terminal index
4    Table of Contents


    Intro
===JL Status===
4    About Lojban
3    About this book


    Lojban Orthography
I remain short of my goal of publishing every three months, at least partially because getting all of the mailings out the door last issue took more than a month in the first place. But hopefully 4 months is better than the delays we had been having.
1    Letters and symbols
3  |  optional conventions
|    Cyrillic Lojban
|    Dates
1  |  compounds
|    text layout


    Lojban Phonology
I delayed a little in hopes of seeing some more submissions for the ckafybarja (coffeehouse) writing project, especially from those of you who first became aware of the project with the publication of last issue. Nick Nicholas revised one piece that was in progress when JL17 was published. Then, at the last minute, he submitted a character description on behalf of a friend. But otherwise, alas, only silence. As a result, the period for submission of characters and/or setting ideas has been extended indefinitely, until the various people who have contributed feel that enough has been submitted to either vote, or to at least turn fully to the Lojban writing endeavor that is intended.
2    consonants
1    permissible initials
1    permissible medials
2    vowels, diphthongs,
    divowels
2  |  syllables
|    hyphen
|    buffering
1    stress
1  |  rhythm, phrasing
|    intonation


    Lojban Morphology
Unfortunately, this issue of JL has taken even longer to produce, almost 2 months from the day I started. And I had thought that the issue was partially done when I started. Family life, supporting the computer network discussion, and administrative tasks have kept me from working efficiently, and the types of materials we are publishing are taking longer to edit than older issues, because of the need to ensure clarity and accuracy of technical content.
1    Summary of types and how to
    tell them apart
1  |  cmene (names)
|    cmavo
|      V
|      VV
|      CV
|      CVV
1  |  brivla
|      gismu
1  |    lujvo
|        rafsi
4        lujvo-making
                        algorithm
                        /tosmabru
2        scoring/choice of form
1  |    le'avla
|      le'avla lujvo
3    Resolver algorithm


    Syntax
The books have been too long delayed while I tried to get JL on a more frequent schedule. We've improved the JL frequency, though not to the quarterly level I want, or need in order to get 2nd class mailing from the Postal Service. As such, I have decided to cut off work on this JL and go directly to work on the books for the whole summer. I will not be starting JL19 until September (which means publication probably in October, or perhaps even November). Hopefully the dictionary will be done by then, and maybe (but not likely) the textbook. I'm sure that the decision to put book publication higher priority than regular JL publication is one which the community will find acceptable, provided that we maintain some minimum publication frequency; 3 issues this year, while not the desired 4, is considerably better than we did the last two years.
      E-BNF
2      About the E-BNF
3     *E-BNF
1      *selma'o/E-BNF terminal
    index
      YACC Grammar
8      About the YACC Grammar


                                  14
This delay will also serve to give more time for people to submit writings for the ckafybarja project, per the above discussion, before the next decision point. Let's see some more participation this time.


As partial recompense for the delay, this issue is larger than intended. Our prices were set on an assumed average of 60-70 pages per issue, but both of the last two issues have been longer than that. I will wait till next issue to decide, but if issues continue to run long, I may have to increase the subscription price by about $1 per issue ($4 per 4 issues) as of next issue. Orders and renewals until then (up to a maximum 8 issues prepaid) will be at the rate of US$28 for 4 issues (US) and US$35 overseas.


      selma'o                      45    *lujvo actually in use -
Because the rafsi change baseline took place at a date just before publication, and because the issue was so long already, I've put a minimum of Lojban text in this issue. Next issue will probably have quite a bit more text, since Nora is working on a program that will convert lujvo based on pre-baseline rafsi to the new baseline.
1      *selma'o list                  estimated ~1800
20    *short alphabetical        45    *proposed lujvo (possibly
          definition,                      intermingled with pre-
          subcategories with cmavo        ceding) systematically
          in each subcategory              created (using "se", "te",
      terminals                            "ve", "xe", "nu", "ka",
20    *YACC terminal list,                "ni", "ri'a", "gau", etc.
        definition, examples of            estimated ~3000
        each type?                  22    *pre Eaton/TLI lists
                                          (heavily weeded and
    Lexicon                                edited) - estimated ~1500
      The formation of gismu        15    *collected old proposals
3      Lojbanizing rules used        ~1000
45    *composite gismu            1    Lojbanizing of names
        etymologies (may be omit-  4      *some personal names
        ted for space)              4      *some country/language
1      *cultural gismu                names
1  |  *metric gismu                    le'avla
|    *internal gismu              3      types of le'avla
      Place structures of gismu    1      the culture word issue
30    *Lojban gismu (rafsi,       3      *cultural le'avla
              definition) Lojban  3      *some food items
              order                3      *some plants/animals
35    *gismu keywords;            3      *element words
        keywords/phrases for each  198  *Lojban order dictionary ???
        place by gismu                  (composed of all preceding
35    *Lojban and English order        lists) [gismu (25), cmavo
              (no place                (20), rafsi (8), cmene
              structures)              (names) (6), le'avla (12),
      cmavo                              lujvo(127)]
10    * cmavo in Lojban order      310  *English-order dictionary
10    * cmavo in                        [page counts dependent on
              selma'o/subtype/alp      Lojban order counts:  gismu
              habetical order          (est. pg. x 5), cmavo (x 2),
2      * cmavo compounds                names(x 1), le'avla(x 1),
        typically written as one        lujvo(x 1)]
        word                     
8      * non-Lojban alphabet and      Thesaurus
        symbol set conventions          systems of categorization
1      * unassigned cmavo          4      *Roget's/Athelstan/Lojbab
2      * experimental cmavo        4      *Carter
1      Categories within pro-      4      *Cowan
    sumti (KOhA)                    40  *gismu to category for each
3      Categories within UI          type
2  |  Use of BAI to add            30  *category to gismu for each
    places/cases                      type
|    *list of BAIs typically      10  *English-order cross-index
    used to add cases                  of categories
|    *list of BAIs typically   
              used as sumti        30 Appendix - *Glossary of
              modifiers                Lojban/Linguistic Terminol-
      rafsi                             ogy
1      Assignment of rafsi       
8      *rafsi, by type,
    alphabetically
8      *rafsi, pure alphabetical
20  How to determine place
              structures of lujvo
      lujvo lists


                                  15
===Subscriptions===


We are now fully on the subscription system, and for the most part, people who have not sent a request for JL are no longer receiving it. We have a slightly smaller subscriber list than last issue, but we know that everyone getting the issue really wants it.


    Appendix - Correspondences    drives"?  Each proverb is listed,
I now have to get publication solidly onto the quarterly schedule, in order to get 2nd class status, which means it probably won't happen this year while book publication takes precedence. Until then, people will get JL a little quicker, via first class mail, and of course we are going to still be losing some money as a result.
      with historical TLI Loglan  therefore, under all its content
2    Alternate Orthography for  words.  The word is rotated to the
    Lojban                        front, followed by a comma; the
      Lojban gismu correspondence  place from which it was removed is
      to historical TLI Loglan    marked by a "|" character (omitted
      gismu and lujvo            at the beginning or end).
12    *Lojban gismu order          John took a similar approach
8      *historical Loglan gismu  here.  The entire place structure
    order                          definition is processed, and the
      Lojban selma'o              corresponding gismu is attached to
      correspondence to           the end, set off by a "Ї" sign.
      historical TLI Loglan      The rafsi, if any, are appended in
      selma'o                    parentheses.  This version of the
3      *Lojban selma'o order      program omits all words appearing
3      *historical Loglan selma'o more than 20 times in the input;
    order                         there is no point in listing words
      Lojban cmavo correspondence  under "x4" or "event" or "the".
      to historical TLI Loglan    An exception is made when the word
      cmavo                      is also the LogFlash keyword:
10    *Lojban cmavo order        thus "zvati" appears under "at",
6      *historical Loglan cmavo  but no other word does because
    order                          "at" is too frequent.  Two
                                  different fonts and three sizes
8  Index                          are shown.  We will probably use
____                              trhe smallest that we think can be
502 pages reference +            clearly read in reproduction.
508 pages dictionary +            Comments welcome, especially from
  92 pages thesaurus +            those with vision problems.
  82 pages appendices =           
____                              abdomen:  x1 is a / the | / belly
1184pg                              / lower trunk of x2; Їbetfu (bef
                                    be'u)
                                  able:  x1 is | to do / be /
    Sample English-to-Lojban        capable of doing / being x2
  dictionary (intermediate step)    under conditions x3; Їkakne (kak
                                    ka'e)
  The following is a sample of the above:  x1 is directly | /
output from a KWIC (Key Word In      upwards-from x2 in gravity /
Context) tool that John Cowan        frame of reference x4; Їgapru
wrote specifically to help          (gar)
automate creating the English-to-  abrupt:  x1 is sudden / | /
Lojban dictionary. This is a        sharply changes at stage / point
trial effort, which will almost      x2 in process / property /
certainly play a part in the        function x3; Їsuksa (suk)
creation of the English portion of absolute:  x1 is a fact / reality
the dictionary.  There may be some   / truth, in the | ; Їfatci (fac)
differences in style or format.    absorbs:  x1 soaks up / | / sucks
Comments are welcome as to how      up x2 from x3 into x4; Їcokcu
usable you find this style of        (cok cko co'u)
presentation of the vocabulary.    abstracted:  x1 is | / generalized
  This format is that used by the    / idealized from x2 by rules x3;
Oxford Dictionary of English        Їsucta (suc)
Proverbs, which has the problem of academy:  x1 is a school /
deciding how to alphabetize a list  institute / | at x2 teaching
of proverbs. Just using the first  subject x3 to audience /
word (or even the first content      community x4 operated by x5;
word) is not enough; what if you    Їckule (cu'e)
remember only the word "devil"    accessing:  x1 is a street /
from "Needs must when the devil      avenue / lane / drive / cul-de-


                                  16
As of the publication date, we have around 120 JL subscribers. For about 25 of these, JL18 is listed as their last issue, but I expect at least half of these to renew their subscription based on the experience of the last 4 months. Thus, the number of (all paid) subscribers will drop to around 110 for JL19, and seems likely to stabilize at around that level until books are published (when it hopefully will increase). US recipients will continue to get their issue by first class mail.


===Finances===


  sac / way / alley / at x2 | x3;  accruing:  x1 is a profit / gain /
We continue to expend money faster than we are taking it in, but the rate of hemorrhage has slowed (at least until this issue goes out). We already had a deficit for 1993 of a couple of thousand dollars by April, which has been remedied by the delay in publication, and significant donations from Jeff Prothero (totalling $1500 so far this year, or almost 1/2 of our income). We will still need a fund raising drive in order to make it through the year. I intend to ask for donations in the letter that announces publication of the first book. Substantial donations and/or massive orders will also be necessary to keep the price for the Lojban books reasonable, since small print-runs alone will add several dollars to the price of each book, and we cannot afford a larger print run. (Expected publication costs will run around $10,000. Donors welcome!)
  Їklaji (laj)                      benefit / advantage to x2 | /
accident:  x1 is an | /              resulting from activity /
  unintentional on the part of x2;  process x3; Їprali (pal)
  x1 is an accident; Їsnuti (nut  accuracy:  x1 measures / evaluates
  nu'i)                              x2 as x3 units on scale x4, with
accommodates:  x1 contains / holds  | x5; Їmerli (mel mei)
  / encloses / | / includes con-  achieve:  x1 helps / assists /
  tents x2 within; x1 is a vessel    aids object / person x2 do / | /
  containing x2; Їvasru (vas vau)    maintain event / activity x3;
accompanies:  x1 is with / | / is    Їsidju (sid dju)
  a companion of x2, in state /    achieves:  x1 succeeds in / | /
  condition / enterprise x3;        completes / accomplishes x2;
  Їkansa (kas)                      Їsnada
accompaniment:  x1 dances to | x2; acid:  x1 is a quantity of /
  Їdansu                            contains / is made of | of
accomplishes:  x1 succeeds in /      composition x2; x1 is acidic;
  achieves / completes / | x2;      Їslami
  Їsnada                          acidic:  x1 is a quantity of /
according: x1 is a dimension of      contains / is made of acid of
  space / object x2 | to rules /    composition x2; x1 is; Їslami
  model x3; Їcimde                acids:  x1 is a quantity of
according: x1 is a family / clan /  protein / albumin of type x2
  tribe with members x2 bonded /    composed of amino; Їlanbi
  tied / joined | to standard x3;  acquires:  x1 gets / | / obtains
  Їlanzu (laz)                      x2 from source x3; Їcpacu (cpa)
according:  x1 is a history of x2  acrid:  x1 is bitter / | / sharply
  | to x3 / from point-of-view x3;  disagreeable to x2; Їkurki
  Їcitri (cir)                     across:  x1 is a bridge over / |
according:  x1 is an heir to / is    x2 between x3 and x4; Їcripu
  to inherit x2 from x3 | to rule    (rip)
  x4; Їcerda (ced)                across:  x1 is located | x2 from
according:  x1 is polite /          x3; x1 is opposite x3; Їragve
  courteous in matter x2 | to        (rav)
  standard / custom x3; Їclite    across:  x1 ranges / extends /
  (lit)                              spans / reaches | / over inter-
according:  x1 is to the east /      val / gap / area x2; Їkuspe (kup
  eastern side of x2 | to frame of  ku'e)
  reference x3; Їstuna            act:  x1 is an event / state / |
according: x1 is to the north /      of violence; Їvlile (vil)
  northern side of x2 | to frame-  actions:  x1 is kind to x2 in | /
  of-reference x3; Їberti (ber)      behavior x3; Їxendo (xed xe'o)
according:  x1 is to the south /  actions:  x1 tries / attempts to
  southern side of x2 | to frame    do / attain x2 by | / method x3;
  of reference x3; Їsnanu            Їtroci (roc ro'i)
according: x1 is to the west /   
  western side of x2 | to frame of  An alternative being considered,
  reference x3; Їstici            and shown as a second example, is
according:  x1 is / reflects a    to repeat the English words in
  pattern of forms / events x2 ar- their context, marked by format to
  ranged | to structure x3; Їmorna make them easy to spot.  Creating
  (mor mo'a)                      such an alternative format is
account:  x1 is an | / bill /      significantly more cumbersome, and
  invoice for goods / services x2, obviously takes a bit more space
  billed to x3, billed by x4;      since the words are spelled out,
  Їjanta (jat ja'a)                but many would find it easier to
accountable:  x1 is responsible /  read. In a dictionary, even small
  | for x2 to judge / authority    percentage changes in definition
  x3; Їfuzme (fuz fu'e)           length can make a difference of
                                  several pages in the result.


                                  17
===LogFest 93===


The dates for LogFest 93, and the annual meeting of la lojbangirz. has been set. The gathering will take place at Lojbab's house in Fairfax VA (per the la lojbangirz. address and phone number) the weekend of 9-12 July 1993 (we traditionally open up on Friday, but schedule few organized activities for that day; people can feel free to arrive on Saturday the 10th, to come for only one day, etc.). As in previous years, families are welcome, although we are requesting that attendees bring sleeping bags, etc. if possible. One or more tents will be set up in the yard as applicable to ensure plenty of sleeping space.


Since the Lojban dictionary is    accomplishes:  x1 succeeds in /
The invitation to families is a bit more meaningful this year, since we now have two kids. Child care duties will presumably be shared among the relevant adults to maximize people's abilities to participate in activities.
going to be expensive to produce,    achieves / completes / ac-
brevity could make a difference it  complishes x2; Їsnada
what we have to charge for the    according: x1 is a dimension of
result.                              space / object x2 according to
  If you have a strong preference    rules / model x3; Їcimde
in this utility vs. cost tradeoff, according: x1 is a family / clan /
make it known to us as soon as      tribe with members x2 bonded /
possible.                           tied / joined according to
                                    standard x3; Їlanzu (laz)
abdomen:  x1 is a / the abdomen /  according:  x1 is a history of x2
  belly / lower trunk of x2;        according to x3 / from point-of-
  Їbetfu (bef be'u)                  view x3; Їcitri (cir)
able:  x1 is able to do / be /    according:  x1 is an heir to / is
  capable of doing / being x2 un-    to inherit x2 from x3 according
  der conditions x3; Їkakne (kak    to rule x4; Їcerda (ced)
  ka'e)                            according:  x1 is polite /
above:  x1 is directly above /      courteous in matter x2 according
  upwards-from x2 in gravity /      to standard / custom x3; Їclite
  frame of reference x4; Їgapru      (lit)
  (gar)                            according:  x1 is to the east /
abrupt:  x1 is sudden / abrupt /    eastern side of x2 according to
  sharply changes at stage / point  frame of reference x3; Їstuna
  x2 in process / property /      according: x1 is to the north /
  function x3; Їsuksa (suk)          northern side of x2 according to
absolute:  x1 is a fact / reality    frame-of-reference x3; Їberti
  / truth, in the absolute; Їfatci  (ber)
  (fac)                            according:  x1 is to the south /
absorbs:  x1 soaks up / absorbs /    southern side of x2 according to
  sucks up x2 from x3 into x4;      frame of reference x3; Їsnanu
  Їcokcu (cok cko co'u)            according: x1 is to the west /
abstracted:  x1 is abstracted /      western side of x2 according to
  generalized / idealized from x2    frame of reference x3; Їstici
  by rules x3; Їsucta (suc)        according:  x1 is / reflects a
academy:  x1 is a school /          pattern of forms / events x2 ar-
  institute / academy at x2          ranged according to structure
  teaching subject x3 to audience    x3; Їmorna (mor mo'a)
  / community x4 operated by x5;  account:  x1 is an account / bill
  Їckule (cu'e)                      / invoice for goods / services
accessing:  x1 is a street /        x2, billed to x3, billed by x4;
  avenue / lane / drive / cul-de-    Їjanta (jat ja'a)
  sac / way / alley / at x2        accountable:  x1 is responsible /
  accessing x3; Їklaji (laj)        accountable for x2 to judge /
accident:  x1 is an accident /      authority x3; Їfuzme (fuz fu'e)
  unintentional on the part of x2; accruing:  x1 is a profit / gain /
  x1 is an accident; Їsnuti (nut    benefit / advantage to x2 ac-
  nu'i)                              cruing / resulting from activity
accommodates:  x1 contains / holds  / process x3; Їprali (pal)
  / encloses / accommodates /      accuracy:  x1 measures / evaluates
  includes contents x2 within; x1    x2 as x3 units on scale x4, with
  is a vessel containing x2;        accuracy x5; Їmerli (mel mei)
  Їvasru (vas vau)                achieve:  x1 helps / assists /
accompanies:  x1 is with /          aids object / person x2 do /
  accompanies / is a companion of    achieve / maintain event /
  x2, in state / condition /        activity x3; Їsidju (sid dju)
  enterprise x3; Їkansa (kas)      achieves:  x1 succeeds in /
accompaniment:  x1 dances to        achieves / completes / accom-
  accompaniment x2; Їdansu          plishes x2; Їsnada
                                  acid:  x1 is a quantity of /
                                    contains / is made of acid of


                                  18
Interest in participating in LogFest seems a bit higher than in previous years, perhaps because more people believe that they can do something with the language, and that books to help learn and use the language will shortly be coming out. Preliminary positive responses from around 20 people suggest that we will set a new turnout record this year.


There is no required admission fee for LogFest. Our costs for putting on LogFest have averaged $20-$30 per attendee in previous years, and we ask attendees to donate at least enough to cover their share if possible. But we don't want money to stand in the way of your attending if you are interested in coming.


  composition x2; x1 is acidic;      agree that a planned language
As is typical for LogFests, we expect that this year will consist of mostly English-language activities, with an emphasis on Lojban-teaching and learning activities for those new or less experienced in the language. There will probably be significant discussion of the ckafybarja Project, which was significantly developed at last year's gathering.
  Їslami                            should have no allomorphs, i.e.
acidic:  x1 is a quantity of /      each root-word should have only
  contains / is made of acid of      one form which should not change
  composition x2; x1 is; Їslami      due to conjugation, declension,
acids:  x1 is a quantity of          compounding, or other gram-
  protein / albumin of type x2      matical processes.  Allomorphs
  composed of amino; Їlanbi          increase the difficulty of memo-
acquires:  x1 gets / acidic /        rizing a vocabulary and give no
  obtains x2 from source x3;        benefit in return.  It appears
  Їcpacu (cpa)                      that Loglan and Lojban suffer
acrid:  x1 is bitter / acrid /      from rampant allomorphy.  Any
  sharply disagreeable to x2;        given 5-letter predicate might
  Їkurki                            have 0, 1, 2, or 3 triliteral
across:  x1 is a bridge over /      allomorphs to be used in
  across x2 between x3 and x4;      compound words.  Unless I am
  Їcripu (rip)                      mistaken, there's no way to
across:  x1 is located across x2    predict whether a given predi-
  from x3; x1 is opposite x3;        cate has allomorphs, and if so,
  Їragve (rav)                      what those allomorphs might be;
across:  x1 ranges / extends /      each predicate's allomorphs must
  spans / reaches across / over      be memorized.
  interval / gap / area x2; Їkuspe
  (kup ku'e)                        Lojban rafsi are the word-forms
act:  x1 is an event / state / act used to make compound words, and
  of violence; Їvlile (vil)        are the 'allomorphs' that Rick is
actions:  x1 is kind to x2 in     talking about.  I, of course
  actions / behavior x3; Їxendo    disagree with Rick's statements
  (xed xe'o)                      and his conclusions.  In
actions:  x1 tries / attempts to  particular, I believe that:
  do / attain x2 by actions /        - 'allomorphy', like many other
  method x3; Їtroci (roc ro'i)    aspects of the design of a
                                  constructed language is a design
                                  feature that may be used as a
        On Lojban rafsi          trade-off to prevent other
            by Lojbab              problems or to provide other ad-
                                  vantages.  In the discussion that
  Occasionally people new to the  follows, I will present our
project have criticized Lojban's  rational, showing that Lojban's
rafsi system, generally claiming  system does both;
that the system is overly complex    - the need to clearly
or hard to learn.  I contend      distinguish between a multi-word
otherwise, based on personal      metaphor and a single word
experience and on observation of   compound derived from that
those who have already learned the metaphor means that some sort of
system.  What may appear extremely allomorphy is necessary.  The only
complex and rule-bound, in        other alternative is to add an
practice turns out to be quite    extraneous particle as glue
easy.  The system also has the    between the components of one of
advantage that you need not learn  these two types of concept
everything at once - you can use  combination (which we do in the
the system while knowing only a    case of le'avla lujvo, but only
fraction of the rules and the      because there is no other general
rafsi.                            solution for an arbitrary word-
    As a sample of the criticism, form that maintains unambiguity).
here is Rick Harrison, commenting  In general such particle addition
on the "conlang" computer mailing  violates Zipf's Law when the
list:                              compound is to be used frequently.
    The vast majority of          Zipf's Law predicts that words
  constructed language enthusiasts which are frequently used will be


                                  19
Several Lojbanists have expressed serious interest in having a major emphasis on Lojban conversation at this gathering, and we believe that there are enough people skilled enough in the language that we can do this, while providing mentoring/tutoring to those who are unable to understand what is being said without help.


We are also trying to arrange international Lojban conversation during LogFest, most likely by live 'interaction' on the computer networks with Colin Fine and other British Lojbanists, and Nick Nicholas in Australia, using the "IRC" function (see 'Other News' below). Those not able to attend LogFest, but who have Internet access may want to contact us at lojbab@grebyn.com prior to LogFest, and we will try to set some definite times, so that you can also participate in these sessions.


shorter than less frequent ones.  one of them (which no one has), is
While the books will not be published before LogFest, I will be making a major effort to have copies of some or all of the books-in-progress available for people to look at, and possibly to use during Lojban sessions.
I have considerably more faith in  but a very small percentage of the
this principle as a basis for      total vocabulary needed for fluent
constructed language design than I adult conversation, but provides
do in the purported difficulties  immediate benefit for even small
arising from allomorphy, es-      amounts of learning.
pecially with a system like          The first time you see a
Lojban's that is carefully de-    compound, you will probably take
signed.                            it apart.  Perhaps even the first
  (One oft-recurring suggestion    few times.  But you cannot become
for change, generally by critics  even moderately fluent in any
of the language such as Rick, has  language if you need to analyze
been to let the short forms serve  the etymology of every word you
as the roots themselves.  Not only want to read, speak, or
are there far too few such        understand.  Words that occur at
possible roots, but such a usage  all frequently must be inter-
would detract from the words      nalized as a unit of meaning.  If
available for use as cmavo, the    there are 50,000 concepts that are
normal interpretation of a CVV    needed for adult conversation (a
form that is a separate word.  In  reasonable guess), then you will
addition, short rafsi are far more need to memorize 50,000 words, at
densely-packed among the set of    one word per concept.  This number
possible forms than the gismu -    cannot be reduced, except by
nearly all such short forms are    polysemy (one word representing
used.  This results in a          multiple concepts), and I cannot
significant loss of redundancy    see Rick or anyone arguing that
that would make the language      polysemy makes learning a language
harder to resolve with such con-  easier.
densed forms.  Indeed, Lojban        - there is indeed a way to
allows the long-form for any      predict whether a Lojban root has
compound built of 5-letter rafsi,  rafsi, and there are constraints
to alternate for any compound      that greatly limit what those
built with the shorter rafsi forms rafsi might be.  In addition,
to be used equivalently with      because the assignment of rafsi is
identical meaning, to reduce noisy maximized, almost every possible
environment redundancy problems.  rafsi has some meaning.  This has
Finally, of course, if the short  the result that every rafsi that
forms were the roots, there would  you learn to associate with its
be no capability for further      gismu reduces the possibilities
shortening in conformance with    for other words.  This makes
Zipf's Law, and indeed either      learning the others easier, and by
compounds or non-compound          the time you've learned even 1/2
metaphors would have to be longer  the rafsi (or maybe less if
than the separate words that com-  they're the right ones), you can
pose them.)                        generally guess the rest as you
  - all words in a language have  need them.
to memorized eventually, if you      Let me discuss the rationale,
are to achieve fluency.            first.  Lojban lujvo, or compound
'allomorphy', at least as used in  words, represent the myriad of
Lojban, makes learning that        predicate relations that are not
vocabulary easier in general, and reflected in the gismu roots.  As
there are significant benefits in  predicate words in Lojban (as
addition to vocabulary learning,  opposed to tanru, the phrases from
in that you can create new words  which lujvo are often derived),
on an ad hoc basis, even when you  they each have a unique meaning
are still a language novice, and  (and associated place structure).
you can usefully analyze words you This meaning need not be memorized
don't know.  The added memo-      by the Lojban learner - the rafsi
rization implied by the rafsi,    system allows you to unambiguously
even if you memorize every single  take the word apart to see the


                                  20
The annual meeting will take place on 11 July 1993 at 10:30 AM. At this point, there is much less on the agenda than in previous years, and we are hoping that this means that the meeting will be shorter than usual. (People planning to attend who would like to see a policy topic discussed at the meeting are welcome to suggest agenda items.)


===Other News===


tanru components that went into    specific solution embedded in
DC Weekly Group - The DC weekly group, consisting of 4 Lojbanists (with a 5th planning to start regular particpation this month), continues to meet, and do a little conversation each week in Lojban. We seem to have plateaued in skill level, since only a couple of us are spending much time on Lojban on other days of the week, and my activities are not the type that enhance my Lojban skills.
building the compound.  You may    Lojban took 5 years to develop
then assume that the compound      (1978-82), with experimentation at
represents the most common and/or  several steps along the way
most plausible interpretation of   (involving many people, though
that phrase, and you will rarely  unfortunately almost all native
be incorrect.                      English speakers).  The design you
  Thus, as you come to know more  see today was not adopted lightly.
and more of the rafsi through      Several other changes in the
using the language, you become    phonology and the morphology were
less and less dependent on a       also made at the same time, with
dictionary or word list to help    all designed to mutually con-
you understand new words as you    sistent with each other and with
come across them.  The ability to  the goals of the language.  Thus
dispense with a dictionary in     the system of rafsi was not a
everyday Lojban use is the major  patchwork ad-hoc solution that
goal and benefit of the rafsi      doesn't fit the rest of the
system - it is virtually          language - it is an integral part
impossible to achieve fluency in a of the system.
language until you are willing and  In the old system, when
able to try to use it              composing a new lujvo, there were
spontaneously without looking      a large number of possible forms
words up that you don't know.     for combining the gismu
  The ability to do without a      components, and you would have had
dictionary offers a major ad-      to look each of them up to make
vantage in the growth of the      sure that the word had not been
Lojban vocabulary, a critical      already created.  Even if it had
aspect of the language's first    not been already made (and since
years.  Lojbanists, whether new  dictionaries are inherent outdated
or experienced, can create new    in this respect by the time they
words on an ad hoc basis while    are published, you would not be
speaking and writing, using the   certain), you would then look up
rafsi system to do so quickly and your proposed compound, to make
easily.  Doing so, you know that  sure that it had not been already
for a given concept represented by used to represent a different,
a tanru, there is only one lujvo  unrelated tanru.  As such,
structure that will represent that mastering these early versions of
concept.  You won't be inventing a the language effectively required
word only to find out later that  you to memorize words in order to
someone else expressed the same    learn and use them, with
tanru concept in a different form, relatively minor and undependable
and that their version is right    clues in the word-form to aid in
and your version is wrong.        your recognition.
  The system of rafsi replaced an    With the current Lojban system,
earlier Loglan system (changed in  the situation is reversed.  You
1982) wherein compounds were      only memorize those lujvo which
formed by mashing parts of each    you find yourself using often (in
component together without a      which case you memorize them
system, with the result that you  simply by using them often enough
could only guess what components  that they come to mind without
went into making a lujvo.  The    thinking about it).  You invent
only requirement was that the re-  new words on an ad hoc basis,
sulting compound had to be 2 mod 3 knowing that someone else
characters long.                  independently inventing a word for
  The learning problem proved      the same concept will likely end
severe when people actually tried  up with the same word, but that in
to both learn the existing        any case, the word you invent will
compounds and to make new          almost certainly be correct, in
compounds, after the first printed that it will not represent any
dictionary came out in 1975. The


                                  21
Bradford Group - Colin Fine's group in Bradford, UK, continues to grow and to meet regularly, and from postings on the net, is probably achieving a sophistication in Lojban use at least comparable to us in DC. There are 3 participants at this writing.


UK LogFest - Colin Fine and Iain Alexander have been actively recruiting Lojbanists in the United Kingdom, and the numbers are growing significantly, now approximately 40. In addition, a higher percentage of British Lojbanists are active students of the language, whereas many American Lojbanists seem to be holding back on learning the language.


concept other than the one you    a commonly expressed concept is
As a result of the increased numbers, Colin and Iain proposed that a LogFest gathering be held in the UK this year, and this idea met with ready agreement from other Lojbanists. At publication, it appears that the UK LogFest will be held in September, probably at Colin's house in Bradford. Lojbanists throughout the UK, and indeed all of Europe, are encouraged to attend. Independent of JL publication, when a date for this LogFest is firmly set, we will try to send notice to all European Lojbanists of the details for this gathering.
have in mind.                      represented by a long word or
  Briefly reviewing the Lojban    phrase, common usage turns it into
rafsi system, each Lojban gismu    a contraction (like "didn't", or
has between 2 and 5 combining      into an acronym or abbreviation.
forms.  Two of these are trivially Examples include "TV" for
and uniquely determined.  The      "television", "TB" for
gismu itself may be used as its    "tuberculosis", "ASAP" for "as
own combining form when it is in   soon as possible", and "CIA" for
the final position of the lujvo.  "Central Intelligence Agency",
In addition, there is a related 4- reducing 9 syllables to only 3).
letter form, obtained by dropping  It is believed by many linguists
the final vowel from the gismu,    that the multitude of declensions
which may be used in any non-final and conjugations found in lan-
position, by gluing it on to the  guages today are the remnants of
following component with a "y"    earlier contractions.
(pronounced as a schwa, the final    Note that such acronyms as "TV"
sound in the English word "sofa"). lose significant information about
Since no two gismu concepts differ word meaning available in longer
only in the final vowel, this      forms.  "Television", for those
means that each concept has two    who know the Latin roots that
combining forms, which can always  formed the word, reveals some
be used in forming compounds that  aspects of the word's meaning;
can be uniquely broken down to    "TV" does not. "CIA" can stand
recognize the components.          for a variety of longer expres-
  Using only these two 'long'      sions, and there is no clue except
rafsi forms, the 4-letter and the  context to indicate that a
full 5-letter gismu form, the      government organization is the
beginning Lojbanist can use the    intended meaning.  A common
full expressive power of the      English word that is apparently a
language, while memorizing no      short form, "OK", has completely
rafsi.  There are no exceptions to lost its origin (leaving only un-
these rules, and no complications, confirmable speculations). When
and the resulting word, (called    that happens, these compounds
the 'unreduced form') is always    become like roots in themselves
correct and acceptable.            that must be memorized separately.
  The complications arise only    This increases the difficulty of
when you become a more advanced    language learning, unacceptable in
student of the language.  When you a constructed language like
can speak and write in a language  Loglan/ Lojban.
quickly, you don't want really      To relieve this pressure for
long words for relatively simple  short forms for common words,
concepts.  It is fairly common to those Lojban gismu which have been
devise lujvo made up of 4 (or      found most useful in compounds
more) components, sometime for    have been assigned additional 3-
concepts that are used every day.  letter short rafsi.  A Lojban word
Most people would be unsatisfied  may have up to one of each of the
with a language that required them following forms:  a CVC-form, a
to use a 20-letter word with 8    CVV-form, and/or a CCV-form, where
syllables for a very common        C and V stand for consonants and
concept.                           vowels that are found in the
  Indeed, an analysis of natural  source word.  These short-forms
languages called Zipf's Law        may be preferred because they
indicates that the length of words combine to form shorter words,
in actual use is inversely related sometimes with fewer syllables,
to their frequency of use - the    than the 4-letter and 5-letter
most frequently used words in a    rafsi.
language are the shortest ones,      As a result, therefore, more
and long words are rarely used.    than one rafsi may be used to
In languages such as English, when represent a gismu/concept in


                                  22
Colin is also planning a gathering the weekend of the American LogFest, as a 'dry run' for the bigger event, and Lojbanists are welcome to visit that weekend as well.


For further details, please contact Colin Fine at (44) 274 733680 (home) or 274 733466 x3915 (work), or by mail at 33 Pemberton Drive, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD7 1RA, UK


making a compound, since the 4-   where this is true is
CIX - A possible bolster to Colin's efforts to build a UK Lojban group was the formation within the last couple of months of a Lojban discussion group on the UK computer network 'CIX'. This group has grown rapidly, and is reported to have some 25 participants. Lojban List traffic is echoed to this group, and Colin plans to obtain CIX access later this year to assist those interested in studying Lojban in furthering their progress.
and 5- letter forms still exist.  "television", which can be seen as
In addition, because these shorter a short form of the two components
forms are found in other words, or "tele" and "vision".  "TV", a
even standing alone as words      further shortening of the same
(cmavo) in themselves in the case  components is taken as identical
of CVV forms, you need to have    in meaning to "television".  This
rules that prevent the compounds  invariance is true for all Lojban
from breaking up incorrectly.      compounds, even when dozens of
Language design decisions force    possible shortened forms are
tradeoffs between the need to     possible.
maximize the number of words that    Dozens of forms can be possible
can be contracted and the          when more than one short rafsi is
requirement to retain the          assigned to a gismu.  We want to
integrity of the compounds that    assign multiple short forms,
are formed and the ability to      because the effects of sound
break them down into recognizable  interactions and the Lojban word-
meaning components.                formation rules may prevent one
  The nature of the sounds that    particular rafsi from being used
make up words, and the            in some situations.  Thus an
imperfections in human speech and  additional short rafsi increases
hearing give rise to further      the likelihood that some short
complication in a system of word  form is possible in a particular
compression.  Certain sounds, when difficult combination; it also may
adjacent to each other may provoke mean that in other combinations
mispronunciation or may be        where there are no sound re-
misheard by a listener.  Linguists strictions, you will have a
also know that certain sound      multitude of choices.
combinations tend to be unstable    Of course, the rule that all of
and to change with time.  In      these choices will have a single
designing Lojban, we had to plan  common meaning means most of them
ahead to avoid combinations that  will never be used.  Probably only
would likely lead to the Lojban of the longest form (which will be
2100 being significantly different used by language beginners) and
from the Lojban of the first      the shortest form will be used.
dictionary.                        If there is more than one
  All of these tradeoffs have been 'shortest form', different people
dealt with in the current Lojban  may choose different ones are
design; yet the rules for lujvo-  preferable for a while, but usage
making remain relatively simple.  will relatively quickly tend to
Some rafsi are forbidden in some   settle on one of the choices. We
word positions.  Depending on      have defined a formal scoring
word-position and adjacent rafsi,  rules to help people pick the form
you may have to add a "hyphen"    that is most likely to be settled
letter to make a word pro-        on, but it is not necessary to use
nounceable, or to keep the sounds  it - choose the form that sounds
from breaking up into two words    best to you and others may agree.
when heard by a listener.         
  If the rules are too difficult    Let me now turn to a Lojban
for your level of proficiency, you example.  Following is a long
always can fall back to the long  compound that has appeared in
form rafsi mentioned above.  You  Lojban text:
can do so because a firm rule of 
the Lojban design is that, if
there is more than one possible
rafsi combining form, the choice
of form does not affect the
resulting meaning.  The shortest
form of a word means the same as
the long form. An English example


                                  23
IRC - Colin Fine, Nick Nicholas, and Mark Shoulson started a pattern of using the computer network system called "Internet Relay Chat" or IRC, in order to enable 'live' Lojban conversation between Lojbanists otherwise isolated. A group of Lojbanists is thus now meeting irregularly on the computer networks to converse in Lojban, recently including David Young and Sylvia Rutiser from the DC Lojban group. If you are on the Internet with access to the IRC function, and want to participate, contact us by e-mail per page 2.


As described above, we are hoping to use the IRC facility in conjunction with LogFest, to bring more people into the activities here.


  nolraitruti'u  (5 syllables)    compound from a root from a
Legal - The trademark on 'Loglan' has now been officially cancelled, in accordance with the court order following our legal victory on this issue. TLI did not include the trademark claim in the first publication after the cancellation.
        nol-rai-tru-ti'u          structure word.
    nobli-traji-turni-tixnu        Loglan/Lojban has reached what I
noble+superlative+govern+daughter  believe is an optimal tradeoff
  (princess - specifically the    between redundancy and brevity,
daughter of a king/queen, as op-  ease of learning and unambiguity
posed to Princess Di of the UK)  of the morphology.  If other
  If there were no short forms,    solutions exist, they are unlikely
this word would have to be:        to meet all the goals for the
    noblytrajyturnytixnu    (8    language.
            syllables)           
  Given that it is desired that      Let me now turn to two hidden
you expect to memorize the Lojban  assumptions that Rick and others
word, learning it as a unitary    make when criticizing Lojban,
word rather than by puzzling it    assumptions I believe are
together every time from its com-  incorrect:
ponents, it should be obvious that 1) that there is a way of reducing
the shorter word "nolraitruti'u"  the amount of memorization needed
is better than the longer one.  If to gain fluency in a conlang below
you lived in a country with       some arbitrary minimum, and
royalty such as the UK that had    2) that memorizing allomorphs is
such a princess (as Elizabeth was  difficult.
before she became queen) and were    Assuming that the set of
prone to reading, writing, and    thoughts that might be expressed
talking about such a princess a    linguistically should be about the
lot, which word would you prefer  same, regardless of the language,
to say or write?                  there are only so many options
  I argue that "princess" is not  available for expressing those
that infrequent a concept,        thoughts.  If there is 'one word
certainly deserving of a single    per concept', then a speaker must
word.  The British, so I under-    have memorized a separate word for
stand, do make distinctions        each concept in order to achieve
between the various types of      fluency.  If polysemy exists, then
princess, at least in terms of how speaker has an added burden:  to
they are titled, so that the      memorize a somewhat smaller set of
distinction is socially and        words, but to also memorize the
linguistically important.  Lojban  multiple meanings of those words
must have separate words if there  (including meanings he may rarely
are clearly two separate concepts, use) and some means of
as there are in this case (the    pragmatically distinguishing which
'Di' variety of princess might be  meaning is intended.
5 terms:  noble-superlative-        There's no way around this.
governor-son-spouse).              Fluent speakers don't often invent
  The longer 8-syllable form is    words or even derive new
permitted as an alternative to the prefix/suffix formations when
short form, and might be used      conversing.  Productive language
either in noisy environments where formation (i.e. inventing new
the longer word has all those      words) takes time to think, and
extra sounds as redundancy checks, taking that time in the middle of
or by beginners who have not yet  a conversation breaks up fluency.
memorized the short rafsi or the   There is some minimum amount that
compound, and are creating the    must be learned, even in the most
compound on the fly (as this word  regular of conlangs; no design
has been created every time it has trick can reduce this.
been used thus far since we have    For a given language, for each
no dictionary nor people who have  concept you expect to talk or hear
memorized such words). The long  about in fluent speech, you must
forms are of course needed when    learn 1) at least one word for the
the words are not compounded, or  concept, 2) the association of
you would not be able to tell a    that word with that specific


                                  24
We have now paid off the legal debt, with money contributed by Lojbab and Jeff Prothero.


The Loglan Institute - There is little to report about the Loglan Institute these days; not much seems to be going on. The organization continues to exist, and may be gaining supporters, although at considerable expense. TLI had an advertisement in the April 1993 Scientific American, although they reported in Lognet that they spent an amount for the ad that would take an enormous response in order to break even. TLI has apparently set up a computer network mailing list, but people who have subscribed to it report no activity.


concept, and not to other concepts can easily decompose - after
TLI may be nearing completion of their own dictionary revision, which will be issued in electronic form (a price of $50 has been mentioned). They are also reporting work on a substantial revision on the rules of their language version, in order to make it, like Lojban, truly 'self-segregating' at the word level (i.e., unambiguity demands that you always be able to break a stream of Loglan/Lojban sounds down into individual words uniquely; the TLI language version has been seriously defective in this area).
(including false friends from the  seeing these words over and over,
native language), 3) any other    they suddenly find that they know
meanings or usages associated with both the word-formation rules, the
that word, including both polysemy affixes, and the compounds.
and pragmatic considerations (what  Lojban in effect carries the
phrases may be appended to        Esperanto technique to the ul-
sentences using that word, etc.    timate extreme.  Rather than a
For example, if you stick an      couple dozen short affixes, we al-
object on an intransitive verb "*I low every root to have an affix,
sit the store", or attach certain  and then make those affixes re-
prepositional phrases to a word    semble the roots in very regular
that doesn't expect them "*I give  ways.  For all Loj-ban lujvo, you
from Mary across the store" you    automatically know that any resem-
get nonsense in any language,      blances to words of other
ungrammatical garbage in most of  languages are accidental, since
them.) It takes memorization to  those lujvo are always composite
turn words into sense.             of simpler words in Lojban and are
  Thus, for people who are really  not derived from any other
going to use a language, the only  language.
thing you can do is ease the     
memorization process to make it     As for the second assumption, I
easier to do that required        assert that Rick is wrong, and
memorization, to get from novice  that
to fluency.                          A very regular conlang can have
  One way - the most frequent        allomorphs that are easy to
among conlang inventors - is to      memorize and Lojban has such a
build lots of memory hooks to some  system that actually makes
natural language(s).  In doing so,   compound words more learnable
you risk semantics transfer that    than they might otherwise be.
might make your conlang not truly
an independent language.  An      There are three parts to my
example of this problem is the    argument on this point:
oft-heard debate about the Es-    - the nature of 'memorizing' of a
peranto prefix "mal-" which in    word is non-trivial in the first
that language means "opposite of", place;
but in many European languages    - Lojban's system is designed to
means "bad".  People native to    provide differing aids to the
those languages seem to often com- novice, the experienced learner,
plain about 'derogative'          and the expert Lojbanist, allowing
implications of words containing  the different levels of skill to
"mal-", when such implications are concentrate on those aspects of
not part of Esperanto in any way.  word 'memorizing' that are easiest
You can't avoid this kind of prob- for their skill level and most
lem - all languages will have      productive for them;
'false friends' that mislead you  - the Lojban allomorphs, being
in learning similar-appearing new  made in predictable ways from the
words in a new language.  You can  gismu are relatively easy to
minimize it through other methods  memorize.
of aiding the learning process.   
  One way, occurring in Esperanto,  There are two phases to
is the use of affixes (such as    memorizing a word. In the Lojban
"mal-") that modify meanings of    literature, we call these phases
words in certain semi-regular      "recognition" and "recall". In
ways.  Thus, by learning a few    recognition, the goal is to look
words and these few productive    at a word, and be able to
affixes, you multiply the          recognize its conceptual meaning.
vocabulary that results from      In recall, you must be able to go
memorization.  New people then    from a concept in-mind, and
learn from seeing words that they


                                  25
This will be the last issue containing a regular report on TLI; we will, of course, continue to report any real news about the organization that I receive either through official or unofficial channels. But with the end of the legal battle, there seems to be little interest among the Lojban community in hearing about TLI, so long as they seem to be avoiding resolution of our differences.


===Book Status===


determine the word that represents it up a couple of times.  In
Work continues on the books, but we cannot report any completion dates yet. Highest priority remains the dictionary/reference, and that occupies most of Lojbab's time in between JL issues, along with the administrative tasks involved in keeping the organization running (including responding to orders and questions from the community by mail). Unfortunately, these latter tasks continue to take too much time, with the inevitable continued delays. There is some significant progress though. In this issue, however, are two reports on the dictionary/reference: an outline, and a sample discussing our approach to doing the English-order portion of the dictionary.
that concept.                      reality, of course, context clues
  Recognition is by far the easier may tell you what a word must
of the two skills to master, and  mean, allowing you to recognize
it is the most important for the  the components, which contribute
new Lojban learner.  Such a new    to that meaning, even more easily.
learner will probably be reading  Since the early Lojban student
far more Lojban text than he/she  must recognize far more words (and
will write (or if learning        hence rafsi) than he must recall
verbally, will hear far more than  or generate, this is the key skill
he/she speaks).  When learning to  at this early stage.
recognize words in a foreign        At this stage, a Lojbanist
language, you can rely on aspects  generally knows few gismu or
of the word that you are trying to rafsi, so he/she will tend to
learn that in some way remind you  learn them in tandem.  Since the
of a corresponding word in the    rafsi closely resemble their
other language.                    corresponding gismu (as I'll ex-
  As evidence for the difference  plain below), learning gismu helps
in difficulty, people using our    in learning the corresponding
software tool 'LogFlash' will      rafsi and vice versa.  Simpler
practice 'recognition' of a Lojban Lojban texts will probably have a
gismu, and must get it correct 3  higher percentage of gismu than
times correctly before they        more advanced texts, and thus more
attempt 'recall'.  Depending on    words can be simply looked up in
individual skill at learning, and  the word lists.  (When the
the amount of time spent studying  dictionary is available, I suspect
in advance of a first test, a      that simpler texts will tend to
Lojbanist will range from 20% to  rely more on words in the
perhaps 70% correct.  However,    published vocabulary than on
having gotten a word correct once, coining of new words.)
the minimum score for the 2nd        From the recognition standpoint,
attempt ranges from 60% to 90%    the lujvo-making algorithm is
correct, and the 3rd time after    incredibly simple.  Break a lujvo
two correct recognitions in a row, at every 'y', dropping the 'y's,
results in over 90% correct (most  then break all remaining chunks of
errors are typos). However, the  more than 5 letters by removing 3
first recall attempt, which        letter chunks from the front. You
follows the 3 successful          will be left with 3 letter pieces,
recognitions, tends to range from  which of course are short rafsi,
only 30% to 70% again, almost as  at most one 5 letter piece at the
if learning to recognize the word  end of the word, which is a well-
gave absolutely no advantage to    formed gismu, and 4-letter pieces
learning to recall it.  (Words    which are gismu missing their
successfully recalled once are    final vowel, which can be
recalled 90% correctly on the next trivially identified in a gismu
recall attempt.  However, recall  list.  (While le'avla borrowings
skill decays relatively quickly    are rare, especially in beginning
without practice, dropping to the texts, they can be most readily
original 30-70% level within a    identified either by a 3-or-more
couple of weeks if there have been letter consonant cluster with a
only two test sessions.            syllabic 'r' or 'n' after the
Recognition skill drops off much  first 3 letters - the classifier
more slowly.                       rafsi - or more simply by the fact
  As applied to the rafsi          that they fail to break down into
components of lujvo, given no      3 and 5 letter chunks that are all
clues to meaning from context, the valid rafsi, as described above.
early Lojban student will still    le'avla never contain a 'y', so 4-
quickly gain the ability to        letter rafsi will not occur.)
recognize and identify the meaning  As you start to write in the
of the rafsi after having to look  language, you will already know a


                                  26
As the outline shows, the contents of the reference book have swollen to the point that we are strongly considering issuing the reference as two books - one more of a reference per se, while the other is a pure dictionary of English-Lojban and Lojban-English, emphasizing content words. A major reason for this has been Nick Nicholas's excellent and extensive work on lujvo, which promises to give us several thousand entries in each direction in the dictionary if it is completed. Nick is also writing a paper describing his treatment of place structures in lujvo-making, which will also be included in the reference book.


John Cowan has completed a revision of the entire content of the draft textbook lessons, reorganizing the materials and updating them to the current language. The results will be merged with the new work that Lojbab has done towards a textbook, and will then result in the draft textbook.


few gismu from reading, and maybe  gismu, there are only a few
John also has continued writing his survey papers covering the entirety of the language from the standpoint of the grammar, which will be assembled into the Lojban Reference Grammar. This still will be the last of the scheduled books to be completed, since John has several papers left to write, and all of the papers must yet be reviewed by several people before they are finalized.
a few rafsi.  You then have to    possible rafsi, and no more than
learn to make lujvo.  Initially,  one of each of the forms.  A CVCCV
this can be done using long-form  gismu (form C1V1C2C3V2) must have
rafsi, with no complications.      rafsi from among the 5 forms CVC
Learning long-form rafsi is        {C1V1C2 or C1V1C3}, CVV {C1V1V2,
equivalent to learning gismu, so  with or without the apostrophe
no memorization is being wasted on between the vowels}, and CCV
this stage.  Ideally you will      {C2C3V2 or rarely C1C2V1 and the
memorize all of the gismu, or at  consonant cluster must be a
least most of them.  Your          permissible initial}.  (By the
continued reading will teach you  time it becomes a factor, you will
some shorter rafsi, because you've have learned which letter
looked them up enough times that  combinations are not permissible
you no longer need to do so.      initials, since there no Lojban
These are probably going to be the words start with them).  A CCVCV
most common rafsi, the ones that  gismu (form C1C2V1C3V2) must
you will most likely need earliest choose rafsi from among CVC
in your own efforts to coin lujvo. {C1V1C3 or C2V2C3}, CVV {C1V1V2 or
You will also acquire a fairly in- C2V1V2, with or without the
stinctive feel for the conditions  apostrophe between the vowels},
under which 'y' is inserted to    and CCV {C1C2V1 and the consonant
break up impermissible consonant  cluster must be a permissible
clusters in lujvo, but the written initial}. In other words, up to 3
rules are clearly and formally    from among 5 possibilities, and
stated for cases that aren't      you can eliminate any pos-
obvious.  As a learner, if you    sibilities that you know are
insert an extra 'y' in error, you  assigned to other words.  You
will be understood; the occasions  don't need to know all of the
where extra 'y's cause word break- rafsi for a given word at first,
up problems are extremely rare,   since you can always use the long
and only affect fluent speech      forms till you are sure of the
streams of spoken Lojban.          short forms.  Thus, you use what
  By the time you know most of the you know, and acquire new rafsi as
gismu, through LogFlash or by some you need them.  Of course, every
other learning technique, you will rafsi you can recall, you can
already have recognition control  almost certainly also recognize.
on many rafsi, and perhaps even        As an example, take the gismu
recall of a few of them.  Only    "bangu"  The possible rafsi are
then is it worthwhile to start    "ban", "bag", "bau", "ba'u" (the 2
memorizing rafsi directly, and at  CCV forms bna and ngu are ruled
that point it becomes quite easy  out because of impermissible
to do so.                          initials).  There can be only 1
  Look first at recognition.  When CVC and only one CVV rafsi, so
you know almost all of the gismu,  "bangu" has at most 2 rafsi.  It
then for any given rafsi, you      turns out that they are:
probably can identify all of the 
gismu it could represent (about    bangu ban  C1V1C2 (CVC) language
1/4 of the rafsi can only stand          bau  C1V1V2 (CVV)
for one possible gismu, and many 
of the rest have only 2 or 3      and readers of this article have
possibilities). But since no      probably already learned the "ban"
gismu has more than one of each of rafsi, since it occurs in the name
the different forms of 3-letter    of the language, Lojban.
rafsi, you will be able to          It should be easily seen in this
eliminate some of the              example that the more rafsi you
possibilities because you know    actually do know, the easy it
another rafsi for that word.      becomes to learn the rest.  You
  Recall of rafsi is made easier  have a closed set of three-letter
by the fact that, for any given    forms, nearly all of which has a


                                  27


==Language Development Status==


meaning.  By the time you know a  tradition in Lojban design has
===gismu===
third of the rafsi, a 1/4 guess    been to have a thorough review
becomes a 1/2 guess.  By the time  immediately prior to any baseline
you know 2/3 of the rafsi, you    decision.  This report describes
probably can deduce 90% of them    the results of such a review.
without a word list, because you    In July and August of 1992, the
can determine so many by          complete set of rafsi was
elimination of alternatives.      reanalyzed based on the 4 years of
  Of course, learning the rafsi    actual usage since the original
helps you cement in your knowledge analysis.  Because of new data,
of the gismu themselves.  If you  the report proposed many changes
know 'bau' is a rafsi for the word to the set of rafsi.  These
for "language" (bangu), you know  changes were reviewed by a
that C1 is b, V1 is a, and V2 is  committee from the community, and
u.  This rather reduces the burden almost half the changes were
of learning the other two letters. thrown out at least partially in
If you know the other rafsi is    the interest of language
"ban", then you know that either  conservatism.
C2 or C3 is 'n', and you can        With this rafsi retuning and
almost certainly guess the word at recent re-examinations of all
that point.  (In speech you can    Lojban gismu place structures, all
probably get away with slurring    aspects of the Lojban design will
over the other consonant and the  have had two or more separate
listener will guess what word you  thorough reviews, separated sig-
wanted from context.)              nificantly in time, to ensure that
                                  the design can stand the test of
                                  time.  While the proposed changes
    Revised rafsi Assignments      are a fairly high percentage of
                                  the total set of rafsi as-
  The Lojban rafsi list, the set  signments, the set of assignments
of affixes associated with the    seems to me (who knows the set of
various gismu and a few cmavo, has rafsi best, to be much the same as
explicitly not been baselined      it was before.
along with the gismu list during    For both efforts at assigning
the last few years.  This is      Lojban rafsi, they have been
because the initial assignment of  assigned using a method developed
rafsi was based on merely educated by JCB for old Loglan during the
guesses on what was needed, with  1979-82 timeframe, and described
some highly suspect data as the    in TLI publication "Notebook 2",
basis for those guesses.  The      believed to be out-of-print; the
intent has been to wait as long as document was not all that useful,
feasible to build a data base of  mainly being a 200-page catalog of
actual lujvo-making usage before  supporting data for what I de-
making the assignments permanent.  scribe much more briefly here
The rafsi assignment list has been without such complete data.  JCB
exceptionally stable over the      called his process 'tuning' the
intervening years partly to en-    rafsi list, or 'optimizing' it for
courage lujvo-making, and partly  'coverage'.
because there was no bona fide      'Coverage' refers to the extent
basis to make judgements about    to which words are used in lujvo
rafsi needs without usage data.    compounds, which is of course the
  Now, with the impending          major use of rafsi (they are also
dictionary publication, we want to used to a more limited extent in
have rafsi assignments with a      names and le'avla borrowings, the
greater confidence of adequacy and latter of which has been taken
stability.  Indeed, the            into account in my latest review,
publication of a dictionary that  as noted below).  The goal is to
we hope to be able to sell in book ensure that a maximal percentage
form for a few years requires that of Lojban lujvo compounds can be
we baseline the list.  The


                                  28
Last issue we noted adding of 4 new gismu to support the new international metric prefixes, but did not list the words. They are (with the international prefix in parentheses):


gocti 10-24 (yocto-)
gotro 1024 (yotta-)
zepti 10-21 (zepto-)
zetro 1021 (zetta-)


composed from 'short' (CVC, CCV,  silent 'd' as Zipf appears to con-
The major work on the gismu list continues to be the resolution of a few open issues on place structures. These issues will be decided as we prepare the dictionary reference. As soon as these issues are decided, the gismu list will be split into two forms, the current form that is intended for use with LogFlash, and a version oriented towards dictionary formatting. Once we have two lists, keeping them matching with each other will be a substantial requirement. In case of conflict, the dictionary format listing will be presumed to have precedence.
or CVV/CV'V form) rafsi.          tinue to shorten the word after
  This goal is based on the       its written form has been frozen
paradigm known as Zipf's Law,      in spelling).  Similar processes
which has been fully embraced by  include the use of acronyms, a
the Loglan design for at least the phenomenon which Lojban supports
last two decades.  The            but tries to discourage.
Loglan/Lojban paradigm actually      Now there are other reasons for
goes beyond the 'law' as inferred  making lujvo other than merely
by Zipf, which merely observed a  frequency of usage.  One obvious
tendency in language and other    reason is to get a more useful
phenomena to inversely relate      place structure, whereas a tanru
length of a phenomenon to          has the place structure of the
frequency.  As the original law is final term.  But the inherent
descriptive rather than            unpredictability of lujvo place
prescriptive, it has been ques-    structures (notwithstanding
tioned on occasion as a design    various proposals for regularizing
principle for Loglan. I do not    them) means that most lujvo will
intend to defend this design      be made because someone sees that
principle, merely to state that it the word/concept in question will
is a central tenet of the Lojban  be used multiple times in multiple
design philosophy in accordance    contexts, and hence justifies
with our policy of following JCB's being thought of as a 'word',
central design tenets for Loglan.  rather than a phrase.
  Applying Zipf's Law to Loglan      At this stage there is not a lot
design, we have assumed that the   of a priori decision making going
law will, whether we allow for it  on regarding lujvo-making. People
or not, govern the evolution of    usually make lujvo when the
the language as it becomes used    concept is expressed by a single
widely in less-controlled          word in the language they are
circumstances as we expect in the  translating from.  But this is a
future.  We want to try to see    valid practice, and indeed is most
where the language will end up    common when compounds are 'bor-
(presumably in a state consistent  rowed' from other languages, a
with Zipf's Law), and design feat- process called 'loan translation'.
ures into the language that will  Of course, not all Lojban lujvo
allow for that evolution to take  that have been proposed correspond
place smoothly, without actually  to single words in other
needing to change the language    languages, so even at this point,
design when it occurs. To the    Lojban is evidencing its own
extent that we can foresee the    trends in concept/ word formation
future of the language, we want to independent of other languages.
make the changes now, and not        It is presumed that under Zipf's
later, when people have already    Law most people will make lujvo to
learned the vocabulary.            cover concepts of higher
  One result suggested by Zipf's  frequency, leaving as phrases
Law is that words of greater fre-  those concepts that occur once, or
quency in usage tend to be         in specific, isolated, context-
shorter.  If a word comes into    dependent situations.  Thus JCB
greater use, it is observed that  put a priority on making gismu and
it becomes shortened, either by    lujvo to represent concepts found
natural word compression. Such    in the one generally recognized
compression might include the      cross-language study of the use of
compression of sounds as in        concepts in languages (as opposed
"cannot" to "can't", or the tying  to words), Helen Eaton's study
words together in compounds like  from the 1920s and 1930s.
lujvo rather than leaving them as  Unfortunately that study is
longer tanru (e.g. the English    outdated, and its association with
lujvo "grandfather" - interesting  4 European languages makes this
in that many pronounce it with a  data questionable as the sole


                                  29
===rafsi===


We are baselining the rafsi list, as changed and published in this issue, effective June 1, 1993. We had intended to have the baseline effective with the book publication, but the books aren't out, and the pending change has had a noticeable effect on people's willingness to make and use lujvo, as well as to write in Lojban in general. Since we expect no changes in the few months before the book comes out, it seems logical to make the change effective now. We are issuing a new list of rafsi as an attachment to this issue, in all of the various orders typically used by Lojbanists, and including the lujvo-making algorithm now excluding le'avla lujvo, which are handled by inserting "zei" between components, with no rafsi used. The place structures are not included in the rafsi list (a full gismu list in both Lojban and keyword order, would be larger than this issue).


basis for a modern language        final positions.  Thus the long
Included in this issue is a discussion of why the Lojban rafsi system works the way it does, and a report indicating why the changes were made and how we went about making the changes. Greg Higley also discusses his ideas on lujvo-making, and gives some samples of the words he has invented. (Other Lojbanists are invited to submit lujvo that you have coined, along with commentary/explanations of how you came to choose those words).
design.  Now that we have actual  form of a compound for "broda
Lojban usage to include in the     brode" will be "brodybrode".  (The
design evaluation, for the first  'example' gismu "brodV" are the
time we can downgrade the          only gismu in the language that
importance of Eaton's study.      share the same final vowel and
  History of the Loglan/Lojban     hence have ambiguous lujvo com-
rafsi system -  The use of rafsi  pounds - but then they are used
in languages, including conlangs,  most often for making examples.
is not particularly controversial. The current reanalysis has given a
Esperanto, for example, has a wide limited alternative to this
variety of prefixes and suffixes  ambiguity for those rare usages of
which operate roughly as Loglan's  these that are non-exemplary).
rafsi do.  The extent to which      It must be clearly understood
Loglan/Lojban uses and indeed de-  that there is no guarantee that a
pends on rafsi may be more        lujvo compound means exactly what
controversial.                    one would infer from the source
  Pre-1982 Loglan had haphazard    metaphor.  Language use is rather
compound formation, with the      too chaotic to assume that.
effect that compressed compounds  Indeed, Lojban policy is to assume
had a structure such that          that the source metaphor is
etymology and hence implied        ambiguous and context-dependent,
meaning could not be elicited from whereas upon adopting a shorter
the word.  As a result, the        compound form, that form becomes a
'correct form' of a compound had  single word in its own right with
to be memorized, and to a great    a unique meaning and place
extent, a given compound could be  structure like all other Lojban
looked at with relatively little  content words (brivla).
possibility of recognition of its    Zipf's Law, plus this
compound nature or of its implied  distinction between metaphor and
meaning.                          compound, require that the com-
  The GMR (Great Morphological    pounds be both shorter than and
Revolution) redesign in 1978-1982  distinguishable from the source
incorporated the concept of        metaphor. All Lojban gismu can
'resolvable affixes' (rafsi) such  form long-form compounds of this
that the fact that a word is a    sort; the use of 'y' replacement
compound could be recognized on   in non-final rafsi assures that
sight, and the nature of its      there is unique resolution, while
etymology and hence significant    also ensuring that the words do
clues as to its meaning could be  not fall apart. In accordance
recognized by identifying the      with Zipf's Law, all such com-
rafsi of which the word was com-  pounds are at least trivially
posed.  In the spirit of Loglan's  shorter than the uncompressed
design, resolvable affixes were to 'metaphor' (tanru) from which they
be unambiguously assigned to      are formed.  If short rafsi exist,
specific gismu roots, so that rec- the compound can be shorter still.
ognizing the rafsi identified a      Since all Loglan rafsi occur
unique etymology, and rules that  only in bound forms (inside
allowed a compound to be          compounds), it was recognized that
unambiguously recognized as being  some shorter forms than the five-
composed of these, and only these, letter rafsi could be used.
rafsi.                            Unambiguous word-resolution
  The Loglan/Lojban design now    limited this set of shorter rafsi
allows for both 'long' and 'short' to CVC, CCV, and CVV forms, where
rafsi. Long rafsi are identical  in Lojban a VV pair might be one
to the basic gismu (all of CVCCV  of the four primary diphthongs or
or CCVCV form) for final position  a disyllable vowel pair (which is
in a compound only or have the    marked with an apostrophe ' to
final vowel replaced by a 'y'      indicate a devoiced, non-glottal-
(pronounced as a schwa) in non-    stop glide, which English speakers


                                  30
Nora is integrating ad hoc software programs into a software capability to correct and revise older texts written with the earlier rafsi list. The current procedure is sufficiently complicated, and the baseline so close to publication, that I had to conevrt all lujvo manually this time. Luckily, this issue has less text than last issue.


===Grammar===


usually approximate with an 'h'      - as glue in two other special
This issue contains a complete summary of the changes to the Lojban grammar that are pending, and an attachment includes the revised E-BNF notation form of the Lojban grammar incorporating those changes. The grammar is effectively being rebaselined with this publication, as we are using a parser incorporating the changes to evaluate Lojban text, and do not otherwise intend to continue using the previous grammar baseline in any way. On the other hand, there is still the possibility of minor corrections before the official rebaselining in conjunction with book publication. If you have any disagreements with any of the proposed changes, we need to hear from you as soon as possible, but we will consider any comments.
sound.)  Older Loglan forms do not    circumstances where a compound
have the distinction between a        might break up into smaller
diphthong (such as "oi") and its      pieces;
corresponding divowel form ("o'i", - require a syllabic 'r' or 'n'
pronounced as in "toe heel"),        (rules determine which is used)
hence have fewer possible CVV        to glue on a CVV rafsi in first
rafsi.  (Note that the CVV rafsi    position where it might 'fall
are totally unrelated to the CVV-    off' in spoken contexts and be
form cmavo.  The rafsi occur only    mistaken for a separate unre-
in bound form, and the rules for    lated structure word (cmavo) of
lujvo-making mean that the rafsi    the same CVV form.  (CVV rafsi
can never be heard as separate      do not need to be glued on the
words. In some cases, a rafsi may  front only in a two-part lujvo
have a meaning related to that of    where the final term is a CCV
the cmavo spelled the same way      rafsi, because the Lojban's
(and this is recognized as a good    penultimate stress rules hold
memory hook to aid in learning the  the pieces together).
words), but such matches occur      Including current new word
only because the cmavo assignments proposals, there are 1342 Lojban
were also chosen where possible to root words, and 93 cmavo that are
be associated with gismu which    useful in delineating meanings of
would suggest the cmavo's meaning. compounds that are also given
  Since all gismu in the language  short rafsi (where possible the
are considered one part of speech  rafsi is the same as the cmavo,
and syntactically identical, it is but this isn't always possible.)
a language requirement that all    Since there are only 733 rafsi
gismu be allowed to serve in all  that can be used in final position
positions within compounds; we    (CVV and CCV forms), it is not
cannot have a limited set that is  possible to assign such a short
more 'worthy' of use as prefixes  rafsi to each root, in spite of
or suffixes in compounds.  We can  the theory that permits any of
use Zipf's Law to assign short    them to appear in final position.
rafsi based on other factors, the  Because Loglan/Lojban words were
minimum requirement that all gismu created based on recognition
have combining forms for all      scores in source natural lan-
positions sets the dictum          guages, they are not uniformly
justifying the universal          spread around the alphabet.  We
availability of 4-letter + 'y'    wanted to make the rafsi set
and 5-letter, 'long-form rafsi'    easily learnable, so we limited
that can be used for any gismu.   the set of possible rafsi for a
  Given the current rules for      given gismu to specific
Lojban sounds and word-making      permutations built from certain
forms, There are 1445 possible    letters of the word.  Thus for
Lojban CVC rafsi, 493 CVV rafsi,  "broda", possible rafsi include
and 240 CCV rafsi.  The rules for  only -bod-, -rod-, -bro-, -bo'a-,
combining these compounds:        and ro'a-.
- forbid a CVC rafsi in final        In some cases, there's no
  position;                        trouble assigning a rafsi to a
- require a 'y' inserted between  gismu - there is only one gismu
  rafsi:                          with the letters permitting use of
  - when they are conjoined so as  the rafsi given the rules for
    to result in certain          deriving possible rafsi. This
    'proscribed medial consonant  determines perhaps 550 rafsi in
    clusters';                    the first pass (1 in 3.5 of the
  - to prevent 'assimilation' that CVC rafsi, 1 in 5 of the CVV
    would make it hard to distin-  rafsi, and 1 in 6 of the CCV
    guish that combination from    rafsi). But given that no gismu
    some other combination;        could have more than one of a
                                  given type of rafsi, and some


                                  31
The previous version of the E-BNF had typographical errors, making it difficult for some to use. Enough Lojbanists are actively using the E-BNF as a tool of studying the language that we felt that this should not wait any longer for published revision. Special thanks to John Cowan for devising and maintaining the E-BNF.


We are not yet publishing a new version of the formal grammar definition (the 'YACC' grammar), which will appear in the published reference book. Note that the E-BNF, while computer-ish in style, is not the formal definition that has been verified as unambiguous. It was prepared manually from the formal definition, and has been checked many times, but the YACC grammar takes precedence in case of disagreement between the two versions.


simplifying assumptions (such as  been used in a set of predefined
The summary of proposed changes, which may be written rather technically for some readers, shows that there continue to be minor changes proposed in the Lojban grammar, nearly all of which are extensions to the expressive power of the language. As John Cowan continues writing the papers that will eventually comprise the Lojban 'reference grammar', minor problems may be discovered that require further changes. We are hoping that all of these will be found before the first book is published, when the official rebaselining will take effect.
noting that a gismu having a CCV  compounds JCB's 1974-5 dictionary
did not need a CVC or a CVV rafsi, chosen because they represented
especially if it would prevent    the most common concepts in 4
another from using that rafsi),    European languages (based on Helen
another 500 rafsi are trivially    Eaton's study).  This data is
decided, perhaps 1/2 of the total. suspect of being both European-
  On the other hand there were    biased and outdated, though no
some rafsi that are extremely      better study is known.
difficult to assign.  In the        The metaphors underlying the
recent retuning, for example,      1974-5 compounds were often
there were 33 competitor-words    culturally biased, and relied on
that could use -ci'a-, and 33 for  English-language based conventions
the two possibilities -sai- and -  unrelated to the Loglan words they
sa'i-, while as many as 500 rafsi  were built on.  Classic bad
(mostly CVC, but nearly 100 of the examples of underlying metaphors
more valuable final position      in that dictionary include "man-
rafsi) could not be used by any    do" for "to man a ship" (which can
gismu.  Only reinventing          easily be done by a woman, and has
significant numbers of gismu,      no functional association with
choosing lower recognition score  manhood), and the word for "kill"
word-forms could significantly    (now a Lojban root), based on
improve this maldistribution, and  "dead-make" where the word for
such a change would not be        "make" means "x constructs y from
considered under our baseline      components/materials z" (meanwhile
policy.  (Only one gismu has      ignoring the 4 completely
previously been reinvented to get  different Loglan words for
a usable final position rafsi,    indicating causality).  Indeed "-
mleca, meaning "less than".  As    make" was used in some 500 com-
part of this retuning, the gismu  pounds, and non-specific "-do" and
for "daytime" is being changed to "-cause" (associated with only one
"donri" to allow it a good rafsi.  of the 4 causality words) in sev-
This second change was considered  eral hundred more each, making a
only because the word was added to substantial part of the old Loglan
the set of gismu so recently, that vocabulary rather restricted in
it is not on the published gismu  semantic variation.  The Lojban
list, and hence is little known.)  vocabulary is intended to be far
  Because of the limited set of    more analytical in terms of the
rafsi, we want to make the rafsi  Lojban meanings of the words, and
assignments optimal for our word  current actual usage ranges over a
set, so as to minimize the length  much wider variety of roots. But
of compounds formed in accordance  the older Loglan data necessarily
with Zipf's Law (presumed to be    dominated our initial rafsi
most of them).  This means that we assignments.
have to 'tune' the set of            Our other source of data besides
assignments based on some type of  JCB's dictionary were words
usage statistics.                  invented by Loglanists, either in
  When we first assigned rafsi in  efforts to cover the rest of
1987-8 after constructing the      Eaton's word lists, or to cover
gismu roots, there were no usage  concepts not in the dictionary
statistics. Older versions of    that were needed by people in the
Loglan had been used in only very  few texts in Loglan that were
scattered bits of text, and were  attempted.  These were generally
based on a set of only around 900  either patterned on the already
gismu roots, including a bunch    poor examples in the 1974-45 dic-
that were judged inappropriate as  tionary, or, even worse, were
'basic roots' like words for      built on haphazard ad-hoc
'billiards' and 'football', and    methodologies generally in
were hence not retained into      ignorance of the rules for com-
Lojban. Most of these words had  pound-making that had been set


                                  32
On the other hand, these changes are so minor that almost none of them affect any text written thus far. Some changes enable new usages where it was found that existing forms were leading to unacceptable semantic situations (see the discussions below of relative clauses - change 20, and JOI - changes 30 and 31 for examples of such changes). As a result of these changes, the changed semantics of some of the older forms may render some older texts as inaccurate, even while still being grammatical.


This issue also contains edited discussions that led to some of the more significant proposals being adopted. These proposals often started as discussions of Lojban stylistics, and understanding these discussions will help you gain a better understanding of how you must think about what you are trying to say in order to properly phrase the Lojban. Note that many of the participants in these discussions are not especially advanced, or skilled, Lojbanists. It is worthwhile to plow through the occasional jargon-ridden passages (there is a limit to how much this editor feels he can change what people write, even for the sake of clarity) to follow the thought processes of these new and more advanced Lojban students. You'll learn a lot about the language and how it works, and maybe a little bit about how people at different levels of skill approach problems of expression in the language.


down.  These included the much    words only achieved 94.6%
lambasted (for obvious reasons)    reduction.
"dog-woman" for the pejorative      It was recognized from the start
equivalent of English "bitch",    that these initial assignments
"one-future-one" for "in sequence" would have to be re-evaluated
('one' is a cmavo and had no final based on actual usage, of which
position rafsi, so the word-      there could not be any until we
inventor just used the CV-form    had a stable gismu list.  This
cmavo, resulting in an illegal    requirement leads to a 'Catch-22'
word), and "water-pass_ through-  situation where you have to have
skin" for "sweat" (the latter uses people learn the rafsi well enough
the worst possible term order;    to use them naturally, while
Loglan grouping would lead one to  preserving the flexibility to
expect the metaphor to refer to a  change them.  Change will
kind of skin, whereas the English  naturally be resisted by people
verb "to sweat" might be a kind of who have taken the trouble to
'passing-through', and the English learn something, and the Lojban
noun 'sweat' might be a kind of    project has been strongly
'water').  There was of course no  committed to recognizing and
frequency data for any of these    respecting the amount of effort
words, other than the frequency    that goes into learning a lan-
inferred from Eaton's list for    guage, and not demand unnecessary
that subset, which basically      relearning through constant
implied that all such 'Eaton      change.
words' would be among the most      Since I was the likely person to
frequent words in Loglan and hence do the eventual retuning, I
should wherever possible have      (Lojbab) made it a point to be the
short forms.                      first to learn the set of rafsi
  In 1979-82, JCB did a            (using the old version of LogFlash
statistical analysis of the words  2 developed especially for this
in his dictionary, choosing a set  purpose), and made it a point to
of resolvable affixes to minimize  try use them heavily when writing
the percentage of words that could in the language.  Thus the re-
not be written with short forms.  learning penalty if there are
In 1987, Lojbab repeated that      changes falls at least as hard on
analysis, using that data, along  me as on anyone.  We also
with a hundred pages of notes on  recognized that we could probably
words proposed for Loglan in the  only do this reanalysis once -
intervening years, most of the low uncontrolled change in the lan-
quality exemplified above.  Only  guage is debilitating to morale,
some of the additional Eaton data  so we've waited till the 'last
was incorporated; we didn't have  minute' before dictionary
the software tools to handle such  publication.
a large data volume, and didn't      Unfortunately, the minimal
want the language design          amount of change in the rafsi list
overwhelmed by the poor quality of over the last couple of years
most of the metaphors.  Because of misled some into thinking that the
a lack of software tools, we com-  rafsi were baselined with the
piled statistics manually          gismu list, so we often repeated
(probably making errors, and in-  the statement of its not being
cluding some entries multiple      baselined.  Still, we avoided
times when they were invented      changes, because people won't use
independently by different        something that is constantly
sources.  But the result was still shifting underfoot like sand.
a significantly broader semantic  Even when new gismu were added, we
field of words - approximately 97% shied away from changing any rafsi
of the lujvo in Loglan's compounds to accommodate them (though we as-
were reducible to short forms in  signed them rafsi from the
JCB's 1982 tuning; the 1987 tuning unassigned set when they were
based on a much larger set of      available).


                                  33
===Lojban Proto-Reference Book===
Preliminary Outline with estimated page counts by section


The following is the outline for the proto-reference book which Lojbab is using as of publication time. It includes a description of each section contemplated for inclusion, and an estimated page count. Major tables, forming the bulk of the book, are the most unpredictable portions in length; these are marked with asterisks (*). The estimated page counts in the following are in most cases just that - estimates (a bar indicates a page count for several related sections). The text is not in general written in any final form, although almost all of the materials exist in some preliminary form that mostly requires editing, rather than new writing.


  Luckily, what has happened fit  extensive for us to lightly change
Due to space and publication cost, some of the materials listed in the outline may be left out. For example, many people would not be that interested in the gismu list etymologies, especially since they are in a rather preliminary form that may make them less easy to use than they eventually will be. On the other hand, the features documented in the outline are those that define Lojban officially, and all may be helpful to both language learners and to people looking over our shoulder to examine the quality of the Lojban design.
our needs quite well.  Few people  such words, and indeed my
actually learned the rafsi in any  threshold against change was to
systematic manner like I did (I    protect a few dozen rafsi
know of no one besides me who      absolutely against change, and
completed even one run-through of only reluctantly consider changes
the rafsi list with LogFlash 2,    to another large group.  Thus
and only a few have reported even  "blari'o"/bluish-green had some
trying to use the program.        claim for 'sacredness' (but not
  Some people, like Nick Nicholas, absolute), even though it has only
have used lujvo heavily in        appeared to my knowledge in one
writing, though he clearly hasn't  set of examples - the recently
memorized most of the rafsi (one  published Diagrammed Summary.
of the few problems with Nick's      Still, if rafsi were to reflect
texts has been trying to figure    frequency of usage, that means
out what his words were supposed  that some of the most frequently
to be when he fails to look up a  used words had to change rafsi, so
rafsi and guesses wrong - that     as to get one more useful given
many people are able to do so      its typical position in a word.
shows that the language doesn't    Since the possible-rafsi-space is
require people to memorize every  densely packed with the existing
rafsi in order to communicate      assignments, though, retuning by
effectively).  Nick also makes    assigning a rafsi to word A gen-
good Lojban lujvo, since he        erally means freeing that rafsi
supports the idea of conventions  from word B, which then needs a
in lujvo-making to a great extent. rafsi currently used by word C,
Though I disagree with making con- hopefully moving down a list until
ventional standards for lujvo at  you get to a word used seldom
this point in the language        enough that people won't so much
development, conventions generally mind it not having a rafsi.
lead to choosing appropriate        In July, 1992 I used software
components and getting them into a tools to process some 3 Megabytes
plausibly acceptable order, a      of Lojban text and English
result clearly better than the    commentary on Lojban text,
strange efforts by some of the old identifying some 2700 lujvo
Loglanists.                        created and their frequency of
  Because of Nick's and others'    usage. (Because the processor
heavy usage we considered certain  could not distinguish English from
rafsi assignments to be 'sacred'  Lojban, a few English words crept
as part of the reanalysis.  For    in because they looked like Lojban
example, we could not seriously    lujvo; e.g., the English word
consider changing -loj- for        "simple" might be a lujvo based on
logji/logic and -ban- for          the unlikely metaphor "mutual-
bangu/language, since that would  paper" - this mis-classification
change the name of the language.  happened relatively rarely.)  The
Likewise, other commonly used      frequency data was used loga-
words were considered inviolate,  rithmically to weight usage data -
like "selbri", "le'avla", "brivla" a word used twice got a score of
(though some of these assignments  2, used four times got a score of
did vary before the gismu list was 3, eight times getting 4, etc., up
baselined:  bridi used to have the to words like selbri and brivla
rafsi -rid-, and 'brivla' was at  used several hundred times and
one time 'ridvla' (but this lujvo  getting weights of at least 10.
would now indicate a source        This weighting supports both the
metaphor of 'fairy-word').  The    Zipf's Law basis of the language,
current word "selbri" in our early and pretty effectively made sure
documentation is "kunbri", -kun-  to protect rafsi assignments that
having been reassigned from        are 'sacred'.
kunti/empty to kunra/ mineral).     I also used different tools to
But our documentation is now too  process the Eaton proposals into


                                  34
A study of the outline shows that, with the exception of the dictionary proper, no section of the book is particularly long, such that omitting it would substantially reduce the size of the books. The only real tradeoff that might make a major difference would be to avoid the practice of listing most data twice - once in the full dictionary, and once in a list specific to the type of information being presented.


However, the nature of the language is such that people will want and need those separate lists fully as much as any combined dictionary list. When you are making new words, you need a handy list of the gismu and their rafsi, and other data, especially existing lujvo, would be a distraction. Similarly, people tend to use lists of cmavo in selma'o order as often, if not more often, than they use alphabetical lists.


the statistics.  As noted, these  ticularly bad metaphors in the
The reference will include three attempts that have been made to devise a thesaurus-style semantic index for Lojban. None of the efforts really can be considered authoritative, and indeed, Lojbab believes that there is a significant problem with the standard thesaurus technique, which tends to be more noun/adjective-oriented than verboriented. In dealing with a predicate language, which is probably more like a verborientation - most of the words have been categorized on the basis of the meaning of their x1 place, which is often not the only place that is important to classify.
metaphors aren't too good, but the Eaton data.  But for the most
words in question cover a broader  part, statistics led the
semantic spectrum than actual      decisions.  The resulting proposal
Lojban usage.  Also many of the    improved coverage only a small
meta-phors are bad mostly in being amount, from 92.6% to 93.8%, but
phrased in a weird-for-Lojban     coverage of the actual Lojban
order, as in the above example    usage portion of the data improved
"skin-pass through-water".  Thus  more significantly, from 89.7% to
even these poorly-made words give  92.8%.  Given the constraints to
suggestions as to gismu that need  minimize changes to 'sacred
rafsi coverage, though should be  rafsi', this was about as good as
ignored in deciding whether a word could be hoped.
gets a final-position or initial    Review by the community led to
position oriented rafsi as-        elimination of many of these
signment.  Words in the Eaton file changes, since people considered a
were only given a weight of '1',   few more rafsi assignments to be
and multiple-occurring usages in  'sacred' than I did in my
Lojban text thus far outweighed    analysis.  But the disapproved
these terms.  Eaton proposals thus changes had only minor effect on
probably only served primarily to  coverage statistics (no percentage
break ties in the 'competition',   has actually been calculated based
and to ensure that the broadest    on the final assignments appearing
possible range of words was        in this issue).
represented.                        Methodology - This section deals
  The new statistics obviously    with details of the methodology I
tracked more closely with actual  used, and may be skipped by people
usage.  However, the 'coverage    not interested in such details.
percentage' of the current rafsi    As stated above, I gathered
assignments dropped to only 92.6.  statistics on usage of gismu in
This sounds pretty good, but is    various positions in lujvo.  These
almost 3 times as bad as JCB's    positions were 1st/3-or-more term
original tuning, and 50% worse    lujvo (allowing any rafsi, but CVV
than the rafsi assignments had    rafsi must always be hyphenated),
been under the original            1st of 2-term lujvo (any rafsi is
statistics.  The actual Lojban    permitted, but CVV are only
usage data was less than 1/2 of    sometimes hyphenated), middle of
the total weighted data, and was  3-or more terms (any rafsi is per-
even more poorly covered, around  mitted, but CVV/CCV never need a
89.7%.                            hyphen afterwards), and final term
  In addition, since 'coverage    (CVC rafsi forbidden, CVV/CCV
percentage' does not reflect hy-   about equally useful, but CCV is
phenation, the quality of the      one syllable shorter than a CVV
coverage was even more mediocre.   with an apostrophe, and is thus
For example, the cmavo, 'ka', much preferable for the highest usage
used in lujvo in recent times, was words).
originally assigned the rafsi        Given these rules, it is clear
'kaz'.  'kaz' is hyphenated before that CCV rafsi are the most
c/f/k/p/s/t/x/j because of the    flexible.  A word with a CCV rafsi
compounding rules.  These letters  never needs a hyphen afterwards,
form cover more than 60% of the    and needs a hyphen before it only
actual rafsi in non-initial        part of the time when preceded by
positions weighted for actual      a CVC (an unvoiced-initial CCV is
usage.  Nick Nicholas and 2 others hyphenated about 25% of the time,
thus asked that 'ka' be given a    a voiced-non-liquid CCV about 40%
less-hyphenated rafsi.            of the time, and mlV/mrV rafsi are
  In a couple of cases, I          hyphenated less than 10% of the
overruled a statistical quirk      time).
after verifying that, for example,  CVV rafsi can be used in any
that it was based on some par-    position but almost always require


                                  35
However, semantic indexing of the gismu list seems to be something that most people have some use for, given the number of people who have reported doing something of that type on their own. Since we cannot produce a definitive and verified thesaurus solution, it seems better to present all three efforts, and let the user of the book decide which best suits his purpose and his understanding of the Lojban vocabulary system. Of course, this takes more pages, but we cannot honestly say, without a lot more research than we are likely to have time for in the next year, which effort is most accurate and/or useful, and what entries in each list are correct. Take all groupings therefore, with a large grain of salt, recognizing that at least one person, the compiler of the particular list, saw a semantic similarity between the various gismu that are grouped together.


Comments on the outline, are of course welcomed.                 


a hyphen in initial position.      out that both statistics and
<pre>
Since there are more than enough  actual lujvo data show that drata
  Pages Section Description
words that need CCV and CVV words is almost never used in final
   4    Table of Contents
for final positions alone, I      position, while drani often is.
emphasized using CVV rafsi for      I made a few other assumptions
concepts concentrated in final    that explicitly deviated from the
positions in the data words but    original rafsi assignments, based
relatively little usage in initial on understanding the word-making
positions in metaphors, CCV rafsi  implications of the lujvo-making
for words with significant final   algorithm better.  Words with CCV
position concentration, but also  rafsi are hyphenated so seldom
having high usage in other        that it rarely improves coverage
positions - in other words with    to give the gismu another rafsi in
high overall position scores.      addition.  Thus, once I assigned a
CVCs are reserved primarily for    CCV rafsi to a word, I ruled out
words concentrated in the first    adding a CVC or CVV rafsi for that
positions.  (CVC assignments were  word as unneeded, unless no other
also favored for gismu often used  word could benefit from the rafsi.
as le'avla classifiers, because    Only 'sacredness' was allowed to
CVC rafsi are the easiest to use  interfere with this principle,
as classifiers.)                  hence zmadu, with no competition
  I presumed to 'tune' at first    for -zma, was assigned that rafsi,
assuming only that a few 'sacred'  and did not need -zad- or -mau-.
rafsi would remain untouched, but  'mau' was deemed moderately
otherwise assuming all assignments 'sacred', though, and was kept
were freely determinable without  with zmadu anyway.  Unusual for a
reference to the past.  With this  word with a CCV, this extra rafsi
assumption, 30-50% of the rafsi    may be occasional useful since it
could be assigned either as        starts with a different letter
'sacred', or as having little or  than the -zma-, hence is useful to
no competition for the rafsi best  avoid hyphenation in about 25% of
suited for them.                  lujvo where it is preceded by a
  For the most part, I proceeded  CVC.  However zad- was freed and
as if I were starting to assign    is no longer assigned to "zmadu"
words from scratch, using          or to any other Lojban word.
'sacredness' only to dictate        A much larger variety of gismu
choices when they came up.  The    have now been used in lujvo; in a
alternative would be to identify  couple areas of the alphabet,
specific words that needed new    something had to give.  For
rafsi as a change from the current example, to assign one of
set (such as 'ka'), and 'force    'kal/kam/kan/kar' to 'ka', 1 of
them' into a new assignment        the existing 4 words using those
cascading along a chain of rafsi  rafsi had to give up its CVC as-
assignments until a rafsi was      signment.  Each of these CVC rafsi
found that wasn't already assigned was the only assignment for its
to a word.  This paradigm is very  corresponding gismu, so this deci-
useful for understanding the      sion was going to deprive a word
actual effects of a series of      of having any rafsi at all (there
changes in retuning.  As a        was no possibility of a chain of
methodology, however, it is highly changes displacing a CVV or a CCV
suspect.  There is no obvious test rafsi).
for when a word 'needs' a rafsi      In actual lujvo usage data, CVV
other than direct comparison of   rafsi have been avoided in initial
the statistics.  People's          positions in favor of CVC rafsi,
instincts can be woefully          especially when they are di-
inaccurate on this score.  Thus,  syllable (with an apostrophe
while 'ka' indeed turned out to    between the vowels).  Indeed, even
justify a rafsi, Nick Nicholas    when a CVC also requires a hyphen
also proposed giving 'drata' -dra- afterwards, it has been preferred
, taking it from drani.  It turned to a CVVr in the same position.


                                  36
    Intro
  4    About Lojban
  3    About this book


    Lojban Orthography
  1    Letters and symbols
  3  |  optional conventions
  |    Cyrillic Lojban
  |    Dates
  1  |  compounds
  |    text layout


This actually contradicts the     as it did in this case.  Else we
     Lojban Phonology
experience of JCB when he did      would end up with a few words
  2     consonants
'taste-tests' to determine the     having almost all the rafsi.  I
  1     permissible initials
lujvo-making choices of the old    gave slightly better favor to
  1     permissible medials
Loglan community - his conclusion  words to keep a CVC rafsi assign-
  2     vowels, diphthongs, divowels
then was that people tended to     ment that they had had previously,
   2 | syllables
like vowel-rich compounds as more  as sanga had previously had -sag-,
   |    hyphen
melodious and easier to pronounce  and indeed that was the determin-
   |   buffering
than words with many consonant     ing factor in this example,
   1     stress
clusters.  (A possible counter-    consistent with the goal to mini-
   1 | rhythm, phrasing
explanation is that consonants     mize unnecessary change.
   |   intonation
provide better aids to word          Another assumption was more
recognition, and are thus          subjective.  For the original
preferred by people who want to    rafsi assignments, a requirement
easily recognize the components in was that all culture words be
a written lujvo; such a tendency   given a rafsi. Since each such
was not measured in the 'Taste    culture word associated with a
Tests' conducted by JCB.) Because country automatically had at least
of this tendency, I de-emphasized  8 identifiable lujvo (e.g.,
CVV scores in the initial          merkyjecta merkybangu merkyrupnu
positions, assigning them almost   merkyfepni merkykulnu merkyturni
solely on the basis of final po-   merkygugde merkynatmi, etc.) this
sition usage.  The following data  policy was justified, and indeed 8
shows one example.                usages was generally enough
                                  statistically to warrant such a
gismule'avla1st/31st/2mid end      lujvo in the original tuning.  But
sanga 0      1   16  2  27      since then, the culture words have
stagi 3      0    0    0   4      come under a lot of attack, and
                                  some Lojbanists have said they
New assignment gismu old          will avoid using them.  At least
assignment                        one person specifically
sag  sa'a     sanga sag          recommended freeing their rafsi
-              stagi -            assignments for use by other words
                                  (though 'sacredness' would
   sanga gained the rafsi -sa'a-    preserve the heavily used
based on extensive new use in      'gic'/glico, 'lob'+'jbo'/lojbo and
final position, a score of '27' in 'mer'/ merko.  Similarly, a
that position guaranteed it such a variety of words associated with
selection.  Having the rafsi      chemical elements have been at-
"sa'a", it is arguable that the    tacked - most of their usages are
word no longer needs the rafsi    figurative ones dating from the
'sag', and it should have been    JCB era, and figurative tanru
used for 'stagi'/ vegetable, which metaphors are now dispreferred in
has 3 usages (all in le'avla);    Lojban usage. Finally, all metric
though all other usages of "stagi" units were presumed to have a
thus far are in final position    defined lujvo for each metric
where a CVC rafsi would do no      prefix (about 16).
good.  I overruled this change,      I downgraded all statistics for
recognizing that with the          these words by at least a factor
substantial score for sanga in 1st of two, even when doing so meant
of 3+ terms (1) and 1st of 2 terms that the calculated coverage would
(16), there would be a lot of      decrease. For example, because
instances of sa'ar- that lujvo-    Nick translated some texts from
makers have dispreferred given a   Ancient Greek, there were some us-
choice.                            ages of 'xelso' in final position.
  Generally I let a word with a   This warranted giving xelso the
CVV rafsi keep a CVC in addition  assignment of 'xle', currently
only if the score for initial      held by 'naxle' (canal) which has
position usages exceeded all      no actual usages indicating that
competitors by at least 5/1 ratio, 'xle' would be useful in addition


                                  37
    Lojban Morphology
  1    Summary of types and how to tell them apart
  1  |  cmene (names)
  |    cmavo
  |      V
  |      VV
  |      CV
  |      CVV
  1  |  brivla
  |      gismu
  1  |    lujvo
  |        rafsi
  4        lujvo-making algorithm /tosmabru
  2        scoring/choice of form
  1  |    le'avla
  |      le'avla lujvo
  3    Resolver algorithm


    Syntax
      E-BNF
  2      About the E-BNF
  3      *E-BNF
  1      *selma'o/E-BNF terminal index
      YACC Grammar
  8      About the YACC Grammar
  1      Parser algorithm
  20    *YACC Grammar
  8      *selma'o/YACC grammar
    terminal index
      selma'o
  1      *selma'o list
  20    *short alphabetical definition,
          subcategories with cmavo in each subcategory
      terminals
  20    *YACC terminal list, definition, examples of each type?


to its noncompetitive CVC as-       Four metric gismu proposed by
    Lexicon
signment of 'nax'.  Nick          John Cowan were included as
       The formation of gismu
specifically recommended against   effectively equivalent to all
  3      Lojbanizing rules used
"xelso", and I took his            other metric words; the exact form
   45    *composite gismu etymologies (may be omitted for space)
recommendation more broadly to ap- of these words was selected to
  1      *cultural gismu
ply to all such cultural           minimize rafsi assignment
  1 |  *metric gismu
compounds. Some gismu in this set problems, since we had to modify
  |    *internal gismu
lost all of their rafsi           the actual prefixes to fit Lojban
      Place structures of gismu
assignments because of the down-   gismu anyway.
  30    *Lojban gismu (rafsi, definition) Lojban order
weighting, many of these being      When I was done with this
   35    *gismu keywords; keywords/phrases for each place by gismu
culture words which were          exercise, I looked at unassigned
  35    *Lojban and English order (no place structures)
borderline to even have gotten a   rafsi and tried to find cmavo that
      cmavo
gismu in the first place.          could reasonably have a use for
   10    * cmavo in Lojban order
   Measurement word scores were    them, in some cases proposing a
  10    * cmavo in selma'o/subtype/alphabetical order
down-weighted by a similar        CCV for a CV cmavo by inserting a
   2      * cmavo compounds typically written as one word
argument.  "snidu" had its CVV -   consonant.  Since the cmavo as-
  8      * non-Lojban alphabet and symbol set conventions
si'u- removed in favor of the     signments have proven to be most
  1      * unassigned cmavo
slightly lower scoring simxu, a    unpredictable and unsatisfying
   2      * experimental cmavo
change that would not have been    based on statistics, this seemed
  1      Categories within pro-sumti (KOhA)
considered based on pure          like a wise course. For cmavo, I
  3     Categories within UI
statistics. Nora argued that,    felt that it is better to assign a
  2 | Use of BAI to add places/cases
while all metric prefixes were     rafsi and drop it if it isn't used
  |     *list of BAIs typically used to add cases
theoretical compounds for snidu,   after the 5 year baseline than to
   |    *list of BAIs typically used as sumti modifiers
in natural languages of metric    not assign one and have the cmavo
       rafsi
countries which also permit such  be difficult or unable to be used
  1      Assignment of rafsi
compounds only a few metric       in lujvo (in which case we might
  8      *rafsi, by type,
prefixes are actually used with    never know they were needed).  The
    alphabetically
each measurement.  Thus we may    community overruled me on this,
   8      *rafsi, pure alphabetical
talk of milliseconds, but seldom   choosing to leave rafsi unassigned
  20  How to determine place structures of lujvo
deciseconds, dekaseconds, or exa-  in borderline situations, thus
       lujvo lists
seconds.  On the other hand, Nora  minimizing the memorization of
  45    *lujvo actually in use - estimated ~1800
favored retaining -gra- for       possibly useless data, and noting
  45   *proposed lujvo (possibly intermingled with preceding) systematically created (using "se", "te", "ve", "xe", "nu", "ka", "ni", "ri'a", "gau", etc.  estimated ~3000
grake/gram because its most        that any cmavo can be incorporated
   22    *pre Eaton/TLI lists (heavily weeded and edited) - estimated ~1500
frequent use is in the compound   into a lujvo-equivalent  using
   15    *collected old proposals ~1000
kilogram which in Lojban would    "zei", though this is not Zipfean.
   1    Lojbanizing of names
require a CCV rafsi to avoid        Lest people worry, I expect that
   4      *some personal names
hyphenation.  In this case, I did  after the 5-year baseline, while
  4      *some country/language names
not downgrade the scores, and      usage might provide data
      le'avla
grake kept 'gra'.  Thus, some      warranting significant retuning of
  3      types of le'avla
amount of subjective judgement was the rafsi list, the assumed
   1      the culture word issue
used in deciding assignments for   philosophy will be to oppose
  3      *cultural le'avla
culture/metric/element words.      revising rafsi assignments.  At
  3      *some food items
   I painstakingly assigned rafsi   this point we are concluding a
  3      *some plants/animals
to each gismu, working ap-        design phase; after 5 years of us-
   3      *element words
proximately 12 hours a day for 3   age, we can only justify fixing
  198 *Lojban order dictionary ??? (composed of all preceding lists) [gismu (25), cmavo (20), rafsi (8), cmene (names) (6), le'avla (12), lujvo(127)]
weeks.  This was a largely manual  what has demonstrably been found
  310  *English-order dictionary [page counts dependent on Lojban order counts:  gismu (est. pg. x 5), cmavo (x 2), names(x 1), le'avla(x 1), lujvo(x 1)]
job involving cross-checking among unreasonable or void by actual us-
several dozen pages of statistics. age.
It is hopefully a one-time job and   I put the results into the
hence was not worth the effort to  computer, and made lists of chains
develop programs to do the anal-   of changes as described above, to
ysis automatically. Perhaps a    make them easier to understand. A
good spreadsheet might have saved  couple of chains proved to offer
some time, but I don't have a      questionable improvement and were
spreadsheet that could handle this backed out. Where changes seemed
much data, and designing and      to affect 'sacred' rafsi
testing a standalone program would disproportionately, I created
have probably taken more time than alternate changes for the
I spent.                          community to select from.


                                  38
    Thesaurus
      systems of categorization
  4      *Roget's/Athelstan/Lojbab
  4      *Carter
  4      *Cowan
  40  *gismu to category for each type
  30  *category to gismu for each type
  10  *English-order cross-index of categories


  30 Appendix - *Glossary of Lojban/Linguistic Terminology
    Appendix - Correspondences with historical TLI Loglan
  2    Alternate Orthography for Lojban
      Lojban gismu correspondence to historical TLI Loglan gismu and lujvo
  12    *Lojban gismu order
  8      *historical Loglan gismu order
      Lojban selma'o
        correspondence to historical TLI Loglan selma'o
  3      *Lojban selma'o order
  3      *historical Loglan selma'o order
      Lojban cmavo correspondence to historical TLI Loglan cmavo
  10    *Lojban cmavo order
  6      *historical Loglan cmavo order


   The resulting set of change          421 assigned (85%)
   8 Index
proposals was posted to Lojban          149 assignments changed (35%)
  ____
List.  Several Lojbanists            Of the changes, 66 words lost a
   502 pages reference +
commented on the draft version of  rafsi without replacement and 65
   508 pages dictionary +
this report included with that    gained a rafsi they didn't have
   92 pages thesaurus +
proposal, and several people      before. Some of the 18 remaining
   82 pages appendices =
indicated a desire to vote on      assignments involve switches
  ____
individual changes.  As a result, between a CVV and its
  1184pg
a large number of the changes I    corresponding CV'V to give a word
</pre>
proposed were rejected (some      with a lot of initial position
involving changing of rafsi that   usages the monosyllable rafsi.
others considered 'sacred', but    Monosyllable CVVs seem not to be
mostly involving assignments of    as rejected by Lojbanist lujvo-
rafsi to cmavo that were not      makers in that position as di-
certain to need them).  The        syllable ones, perhaps because the
community also asked for a couple  resulting word seems shorter.
of other guidelines to be factored   CCV rafsi
into the analysis, such as              240 possible rafsi
minimizing the number of gismu          209 assigned (87%)
with multiple rafsi assignments        51 assignments changed (25%)
(especially 3 rafsi assigned to a  Many CCV changes were switches
single gismu), unless there was   with CVV assignments, sometimes
really a good reason for them.    freeing up a CVC rafsi (since a
This led to some new changes.      CVV word may need a CVC rafsi
        Summary of results        while a CCV rarely does), thus
  In the baseline version approved cutting off a long chain of
after review, there are a total of changes that might have affected
457 changes in rafsi assignments,  several more words.  24 words lost
about 30% of the total, affecting  a CCV rafsi, while 27 gained one
372 total gismu and cmavo.  This  that they did not have before.  No
overstates the actual change rate, words changed CCV assignments, an
since in most cases, giving a      option that was rarely possible.
rafsi to one word means taking it   The numbers and percentages of
away from another, giving 2 actual changes may seem large, given the
changes. The adopted total is    small benefit in coverage (that
significantly lower than the      benefit is actually even lower
original proposal, which would    than the benefit mentioned above;
have changed 590 rafsi. The      The numbers above were calculated
community rejected about 1/3 of    based on the original proposal
the proposed changes, though it    fore changes, some of which did
requested a small number that I    not occur.  However, percentage
did not have in my original        coverage seems now to be a less
report.                            significant figure than the degree
  Following is a more detailed    of failure to cover words that
breakdown.                        have a great deal of usage in luj-
  CVC rafsi                        vo.
    1445 possible rafsi            While the overall coverage
    915 assigned.  (64%)          percentage changed by only a small
    257 assignments changed (28%) amount, most 'problem words' were
  Of the changes, 97 words lost    given useful rafsi.  In the 1987
CVC assignments where they once    rafsi assignments, a word was
had them (many of these also had a considered a 'problem word' if it
CCV or CVV and didn't need both).  had more than an uncovered score
100 words gained CVC rafsi where  of '4'; i.e.  more than 4 lujvo
they did not have one before.  60  where no reduced form could be
words actually changed from one    used.  No problem word in the
CVC to a different one, generally  original data had an uncovered
as part of a cascading chain.      score more than 8.
  CVV rafsi                          By comparison, no less than 111
    493 possible rafsi            words had 'uncovered' scores more


                                  39
==Sample English-to-Lojban dictionary (intermediate step)==


The following is a sample of the output from a KWIC (Key Word In Context) tool that John Cowan wrote specifically to help automate creating the English-to-Lojban dictionary. This is a trial effort, which will almost certainly play a part in the creation of the English portion of the dictionary. There may be some differences in style or format. Comments are welcome as to how usable you find this style of presentation of the vocabulary.


than 10 when I started tuning and              On lujvo
This format is that used by the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, which has the problem of deciding how to alphabetize a list of proverbs. Just using the first word (or even the first content word) is not enough; what if you remember only the word "devil" from "Needs must when the devil drives"? Each proverb is listed, therefore, under all its content words. The word is rotated to the front, followed by a comma; the place from which it was removed is marked by a "|" character (omitted at the beginning or end).
52 had scores exceeding 15.  The            by Greg Higley
worst words had uncovered scores 
exceeding 30.  This means that       I'd like to make a few comments
there were an awful lot of lujvo  on nu jvozba.  As I've read, the
using these words in ways for      current policy of la lojbangirz.
which they did not have short      is "Let a thousand flowers bloom."
rafsi.  These numbers, though      While at first I was opposed to
large, do not affect the coverage  this, I now see the wisdom of it:
percentage much; the latter        How could it be otherwise?  I've
percentage includes some fully-    decided after much thought to
covered words with weights of      disband the lujvo pulji and let
several hundreds.                  the prisoners go.  (nu jvozba
  As a result of tuning, 37 words  "lujvo-making"; lujvo pulji
with scores over 15 were reduced  "lujvo-police")
to a score less than 15, while 7    But this doesn't mean that I
others were forced above that      don't have anything to say on the
level to make room for them. Thus topic of nu jvozba!  Au contraire,
there are now only 15 such really  mon frЉre!  I have actually come
severe problem words, with the     180ш from my old viewpoint:  I'd
highest scores being two words    like to suggest - since 'suggest'
with uncovered scores of 19 and 3  is really all I can do - that a
words with 18 (one of the latter  different view of lujvo be
being "snidu", for which we        adopted.
decided to discount the numerous    As I understand it, a lujvo, as
metric lujvo).                    currently defined, is a tanru that
  There remain 51 words with      has been "compressed" into a
scores above 10, so the total      single word, and that has been
number of problem words was cut by assigned a fixed meaning.  (And I
more than 1/2.                    guess a new place structure, as
  The enclosures give complete    well.)  Thus the essential
lists, in several orders, of the  difference between the tanru
new rafsi assignments.            "remna sovda" and the lujvo
                                  "remso'a" is that the former does
__________________________________ not have a fixed meaning, it might
          ______________          mean "the human's egg", i.e., the
                                  one he had for breakfast, or it
[This issue contains several      could mean the same thing as (what
essays written by Greg Higley.    I'm suggesting for) remso'a,
Greg, who is not on the computer  namely "human ovum", i.e. the
networks, has only contributed    female human reproductive cell.
irregularly on Lojban topics, but    I see lujvo more as
has still been able to affect the  "abbreviations" than "fixed
language design with his          tanru":  I don't think a lujvo has
insightful comments.  (Note that  to be so exact that its meaning is
his examples and translations are  crystal clear.  Then we'd have
not necessarily sanctioned, but    huge lujvo.  I see the parts of a
are sometimes of the nature of    lujvo as forming a "memory hook"
discussion or proposal.  See the   which can be used to remember its
comments after each essay, which  meaning, and which, knowing the
sometimes indicate that a given    concept, can be used to remember
example was either ungrammatical  the lujvo.  I don't think that,
or means something other than what seeing a lujvo on a page, you
Greg intended.)                   should instantly be able to know
  The essays are generally located what it means.  Rather, finding
with other essays on similar      out what it means, you should then
topics, so that this issue forms a be able to more easily remember
cohesive flow.                     it.  Case in point is "le'avla".
                                  This is a word well-known to
                                  Lojbanists, but let us assume that


                                  40
John took a similar approach here. The entire place structure definition is processed, and the corresponding gismu is attached to the end, set off by a "¯" sign. The rafsi, if any, are appended in parentheses. This version of the program omits all words appearing more than 20 times in the input; there is no point in listing words under "x4" or "event" or "the". An exception is made when the word is also the LogFlash keyword: thus "zvati" appears under "at", but no other word does because "at" is too frequent. Two different fonts and three sizes are shown. We will probably use trhe smallest that we think can be clearly read in reproduction. Comments welcome, especially from those with vision problems.


<pre>
abdomen: x1 is a / the | / belly / lower trunk of x2; ¯betfu (bef be'u)


we've never seen it before.  Would anything ground up and made into a
able: x1 is | to do / be / capable of doing / being x2 under conditions x3; ¯kakne (kak ka'e)
you know what it meant, just by    patty.  It doesn't have to be
looking at it?  You could rely on  meat, doesn't even have to be
the context in which it occurs,    food.  If you're eating a
but what if there were no context, hamburger, and you call it "le
or what if the context wasn't      zaltapla", you aren't likely to be
informative enough?  You could    misunderstood, and you can always
probably make some educated        get more specific if you want.  I
guesses, but let's face it,        find that this makes Lojban much
"le'avla" is not a very clear      more interesting, because it
lujvo as lujvo go.  Expanding it  divides the semantic space in a
into a tanru is just as unhelpful: different, perhaps "Lojbanic" way,
"lebna valsi" is just as nebulous. and it helps me to think
And yet I'd like to argue that    "Lojbanically".  If you wanted to
this is just exactly how lujvo    say "That hamburger looks good" in
should be made!  Once you discover Lojban, you're likely to try to
the meaning of "le'avla", you      make the word for "hamburger" very
aren't likely to forget it:  You  specific.  While there's nothing
can now see why it means what it  wrong with this - clarity is a
does.  This is similar to the      good thing.  I think doing this
process that goes on with an      makes Lojban no more than a code
abbreviation, although thankfully  into which we translate the pre-
lujvo have clearer parts than ab-  existing concepts of other lan-
breviations.  You can't            guages.  With GPL, or even lujvo
necessarily figure out the meaning that are unique, but with specific
from the abbreviation, but you can meanings (SPL "Specific Purpose
figure out the abbreviation from  Lujvo"?), we can build a language
the meaning.  With lujvo, it might that is not just a code, but a
be more accurate to say that,      living language of its own, that
given a list of lujvo, you could  divides the semantic space in its
pick out the one that corresponds  own way.
to the concept in question.       
                                  Mark Shoulson:
                                    Higley makes a good point, and
    "General Purpose Lujvo"      it touches a little on something
          by Greg Higley          that I've been thinking about a
                                  lot myself.  I feel that a lot of
  One of the reasons why I don't  the Lojban text written suffers
do much translating from English  from overuse of lujvo owing to a
to Lojban, or from Welsh to        tendency to try to reproduce the
Lojban, is that in order to do    specificity afforded by natural-
this with any reasonable degree of language terms.  I try to use more
accuracy, you have to make lujvo.  tanru than lujvo, and to be as
Well, I do make them, but I        non-specific as I can, while still
usually don't start out with an    saying what I want to say (with a
English or Welsh word or concept  few exceptions; e.g.  I don't use
that I'd like to translate into    prenu as "person" in the English
English.  I start out with the    meaning of "human being" - that's
gismu list and just start          a "remna".  "prenu" is more of
combining, trying to see which    "thinking being" or even "soul"
combinations suggest meaningful    (minus the religious and non-
concepts.  This is how I arrived  bodily connotations)).  So I
at the idea of "General Purpose    avoided Nick's "beipre" for
Lujvo".                            "waiter":  what did the "prenu"
  While making lujvo in this way,  rafsi add?  The waiter is just
I'd often come across a word which "that which carried the coffee":
had no exact equivalent in        "le bevri be lei ckafi".
English, but which seemed to be    Sometimes you may need to be more
useful nevertheless.  A good      specific, that's okay.  But I
example is "zaltapla".  This is    think you'll find that you don't


                                  41
above: x1 is directly | / upwards-from x2 in gravity / frame of reference x4; ¯gapru (gar)


abrupt: x1 is sudden / | / sharply changes at stage / point x2 in process / property / function x3; ¯suksa (suk)


need to be specific as often as    Greg proposes and explains some
absolute: x1 is a fact / reality / truth, in the | ; ¯fatci (fac)
you might think at first.  That                  lujvo
the "bevri" was also a "prenu"   
gets cleared up later, when        lujvo    velcki
conversation is initiated.        ----------------------------------
  Higley's view of lujvo as                  ------
"abbreviations" rather than "fixed bromalsi  "synagogue"
tanru" is very cogent and, I      musymalsi "mosque"
suspect, very close to the        xisymalsi "church" etc.
official view of what lujvo should [And so on.  It's no new discovery
be.  His example, le'avla is a    that the names of the major
good example.  After all,          religious edifice(s) can be made
"le'avla" expands to "lebna valsi" with "malsi".]
which is "take word" or better,    jelspo    "destroy by burning"
"taker word" - a word which is    [This is the basic meaning.  More
somehow associated with a taker,  colloquial translations might be
perhaps.  A more pedantic "jvozba" "put to the torch, burn down, burn
would have made it "selyle'avla",  up" and many others.  "-spo" can
for "se lebna valsi":  "taken-    be added to many words to create
thing word", much closer to the    interesting lujvo of this type:]
meaning:  a word which is taken.  po'aspo  "destroy by (causing to)
Note, though, that that's not what          explode"
we use, nor should it be: you    [It is the x2 place of "po'aspo"
can't trust an expanded lujvo      that does the exploding.  "lenu ta
100%, you can only assume that    spoja cu po'aspo ti" covers any x1
it's close to what the lujvo      explosions nicely.]
means.  lujvo are intended to be  zdabartu  x1 is exterior
dictionary words, having their own          to/outside of the
definitions not precisely derived            nest/dwelling of x2
from their associated tanru (the  [As in "Mom, I'm going outside.":
"selpinxe"/"se pinxe" problem I    "doi mamta  .i mi zdabartu
had before is another good        klama".]
example.  "selpinxe" is a good    zdane'i  x1 is inside of/interior
lujvo for "na'o se pinxe", i.e. "a          to the nest/dwelling of
beverage", as opposed to just                x2
plain "se pinxe" which could mean  [As in "I'm staying in":  "mi
"ca'a se pinxe", "liquid-thing-    zdanei stali".  It could also
sliding-down-someone's-throat".)  roughly mean, "at home" - as long
                                  as x2 is the same as x1.]
Colin Fine:                        zdasta    x1 stays at home x2
  I agree somewhat with Greg, and  zaltapla  x1 is a tile/patty/etc.
wholeheartedly with Mark,                    made of ground-up
especially about inappropriate              material x2
specificity.  (I recall once      [This is one of the "General
inviting people to join me in a    Purpose lujvo" I talked about in
campaign against precision!)       my comments on lujvo.]
  I also like to play around with  rartapla  x1 is a naturally
possible lujvo - and go beyond the          occurring tile-shape of
obvious when trying to coin them.            composition x2
  One thing I do in text is that I taktapla  x1 is a ceramic tile of
will sometimes use a more precise            specific ceramic x2
lujvo the first time I introduce a drutapla  x1 is a ceiling/roof
concept, and then omit a term or            tile of composition x2
two from it thereafter.  Thus      [A GPL.  It isn't specific as to
having once said "samymrilu" I    whether ceiling or roof tiles are
will thereafter quite happily use  needed.  But if you're tiling your
"mrilu" later in the passage.      roof, and you say, "Joe, hand me
                                  that drutapla", you aren't likely
                                  to be misunderstood.  It's the
                                  same thing in English.  When


                                  42
absorbs: x1 soaks up / | / sucks up x2 from x3 into x4; ¯cokcu (cok cko co'u)


abstracted: x1 is | / generalized / idealized from x2 by rules x3; ¯sucta (suc)


tiling a roof, you don't keep      be 7 such common characters, we
academy: x1 is a school / institute / | at x2 teaching subject x3 to audience / community x4 operated by x5; ¯ckule (cu'e)
repeating "roof tile" over and    don't have enough to make much of
over.  You eventually just say    a choice yet.
"tile".]                            Also included later this issue
zdabartu drutapla  "roof tile"    is Nick Nicholas's second ckafy-
[There may well be an easier way  barja piece, written last year,
to say this.  "bartu drutapla"    which he was revising at the time
might not clearly mean "roof      JL17 was being prepared.
tile".  I don't know anything     
about carpentry or the like, but            Character Sketch
"bartu drutapla" could be some              by Zoe Velonis
kind of "exterior ceiling tile" as
opposed to an interior one.]        She had the kind of body that
po'ertutra    x1 is territory    clothes couldn't contain.  It
          (property) owned by x2  wasn't that she was so fat that
ni'ablo  x1 is a submarine        she burst out of whatever she
[I experimented with a number of  wore, that her flesh strained
different terms for "submarine",  against the warp and the weft, but
but I think this sums it up        that she had the kind of body that
nicely.  I had "sfeni'ablo", but  clothes just shouldn't confine.
"sfe-" turned out to be rather    Her bra straps were forever
redundant:  What else would it be  falling down: she'd go about the
under but the surface?]            kitchen tugging at one absent-
zalre'u  x1 is ground meat from  mindedly as she stirred a
          source x2  [A good GPL.] concoction.  Buttons would fly off
remso'a  x1 is a human ovum from  at a moment's notice, turning up
          woman x2                 later in a bowl of soup.  The
remtsi    x1 is human sperm from  zipper of her jeans had to be
          human x2                anchored with a safety pin else it
cticinza  ["cinza" used for        would slowly creep down, leaving
          eating]                  her blushing.
benmro    brain-dead                Her naked body was voluptuous,
[Lojbab:  A little unclear what    resplendent, Rubenesque.  Never of
you mean by this - the most common the personality to subscribe to
colloquial usage of the English,  the feminine beauty myth, she
of course, is merely a form of    exuded both femininity and beauty,
"mabla".  If you are referring to  from her thighs to her belly to
the medical state, this seems      her gloriously round and pendulous
fine.]                            breasts.
jiksre    x1 errs socially in x2    He would come to her at night,
          ["social faux-pas".]    creep into her bed and bury
menmikce  [A general purpose      himself in her warm, soft flesh;
          lujvo:  "psychiatrist,  nestling his face between her
          psychologist, counselor" thighs and reaching up for huge
          etc.]                    handfuls of her breasts,
                                  marvelling at her bounty as she
                                  tossed her head and moaned with
        le lojbo se ciska          pleasure.  She surrounded him,
    New ckafybarja Submissions    took him in, made him feel
                                  complete.
  It appears that theres been        In the daytime she never gave
little work done on the ckafybarja any sign that she knew of his
project since JL17, and I am      nightly visits.  She was the cook,
beginning to think that the        he a busboy, and there was no hint
schedule for the planning phase    of affection or shared pleasure,
was much too ambitious.  The only  much less gratitude, in her voice
new material received was one      as she thrust dishes at him,
English-language personality      giving him instructions in a firm,
sketch, giving us 3 to choose      clipped voice that bore no con-
from.  Since there are planned to  tradictions.


                                  43
accessing: x1 is a street / avenue / lane / drive / cul-de-sac / way / alley / at x2 | x3; ¯klaji (laj)


accident: x1 is an | / unintentional on the part of x2; x1 is an accident; ¯snuti (nut nu'i)


  He'd worshipped her beauty for  jeans.  Breath came in short
accommodates: x1 contains / holds / encloses / | / includes contents x2 within; x1 is a vessel containing x2; ¯vasru (vas vau)
weeks, in the beginning, longing  gasps.
for her, his flesh aching for her,  "Have you ever been with a woman
his mind consumed by the demands  before?" she asked.
of his loins.  He'd sneak outside    Mute, he shook his head.  It was
the cafe' at night, stare up at    the truth: his absentminded
the window he knew was her room as penetration of his sister's best
she turned on the light.  He'd    friend when they were all playing
watch, hypnotized, as she lan-    doctor behind the abandoned barn
guorously disrobed, brushed her    didn't count.  She took his hand
hair, leaned out of the window to  and led him into the room, whose
breathe deeply of the night air.  walls were covered with tapestry
Her breasts shone like twin moons  bedspreads that exuded odors of
as she drank in the night, erasing frankincense and patchouli.  She
the scents of garlic and rosemary, guided him to the bed and
butter and tomatoes from her nos-  undressed him carefully, opened
trils.  Once, as he watched, she  herself to him and then, when he
laughed, a low, quiet chuckle, and had spent his first desire in her,
opened her arms in an embrace.    taught him how to pleasure a woman
"Come up then, why don't you," she as well as himself.
said, her voice rich with a          He realized, at one point, that
melodiousness off nuance that it  he didn't know her name, that she
never had during the day.  His    didn't know his.  Somehow it
breath caught in his ribs, clung  seemed desperately urgent that she
there until he remembered and      whisper his name at her climax,
opened his lungs again.  "Me?" he  but when he told her, she only
asked, desperately grateful that  laughed.
his voice didn't display that        And now she was just another
annoying habit it had lately, of  part of the day to him, the thing
cracking when he particularly      that he escaped to when his shift
wanted it not to.  "No, the other  was over each night, threading his
people who are out there watching  way through the tables and up the
me every night," she said, the    stairs to her soft, endless flesh.
laughter still in her voice.      She was always the same, never
  So he went back into the cafe',  cried or wept or showed that
past the night janitor who        anything touched her emotion.
whistled as he wiped down tables    Her laughter, though rich, was
and mopped the floor, who gave him only amusement, never joy or
a knowing wink that made him all  happiness; and he wondered if the
the more nervous.  He went through walls would echo with her moans of
the kitchen and paused at the foot pleasure without him, if she even
of the stairs, put, finally, one  needed him.  So one night he
foot on the first protesting step. stayed away.
  Thirteen stairs, he counted, and  She looked the same the next
crossed himself.  He turned down  day, but the one after, her face
the hall, past the head waiter's  seemed drawn.  He watched her
room, the manager's to her room.  carefully, but she never said
As he stood outside, breathing    anything to him or to anyone, and
heavily, his pants distended with  although for a month she grew
his desire, she opened the door.  paler and thinner, stopped tugging
  Her nakedness was more than he'd at her bra straps, and although
dreamed of.  Not perfect:  he      her cooking grew bland and
could see the silvery stretch      tasteless, the decline finally
marks on her breasts and thighs,  ended.  Her color came back and
the moles and freckles, the pits  her voluptuousness was even more
and scars of age.  But her        irresistible.  He thought that she
imperfection only made her more    had found a new lover and, jealous
achingly real, more desirable, and more than he had thought himself
his genitals throbbed against his  capable of being, he mounted the
                                  stairs one night to see.


                                  44
accompanies: x1 is with / | / is a companion of x2, in state / condition / enterprise x3; ¯kansa (kas)


accompaniment: x1 dances to | x2; ¯dansu


  There were no sounds from her    indirectly to several other
accomplishes: x1 succeeds in / achieves / completes / | x2; ¯snada
room and he had almost turned away changes.
when he heard her low rumble of a    In most cases, proposals
laugh.  He opened the door quietly discussed in this section have
and peered into the darkness.      been adopted in some form,
  The window was open, making the  although not always in the form
tapestried bedspreads billow in    originally proposed in the
the air, sending out whiffs of    discussion.  Sometimes, for ex-
their scent like tendrilled ivy.  ample, we were able to resolve a
And she...her bed faced the window problem just by explaining things
and on the ceiling was a mirror.  a little better, or possibly by
She lay, legs spread wide to the  making a change to the cmavo list
night, looking up at herself, and  (adding or deleting a word, or
laughed a laugh of joy and happi-  changing the selma'o or detailed
ness.  As he watched, she moaned  definition).
and tossed her head in that way he
knew so well, and then she cried    Proposed Changes 1-32 to the 2nd
out, syllables that formed what he      Baseline Lojban Grammar
knew must be her name, and wept, 
tears of release and happiness as  [Terminology note:  Ek, JEk,
well as pain and emotion.          GIhEk, ZIhEk, GUhEk, JOIk, etc.,
  He crept out, closing the door  have traditionally been used to
softly behind him, and tried to    refer to the sets of logical/non-
blank out the emptiness inside him logical connectives of the
with alcohol, tried to forget that appropriate type, and their
the night and the mirror and her  compounds that involve negation of
own hand had done what he never    either the preceding or following
could.                            term (or scalar negation of the
  It was then that the cafe' began connective in the case of JOI).
to become very popular, then that  This is a useful shorthand when
its cook began to acquire her      talking about these families of
reputation for food with the      compounds that are function
indefinable passion, mer'aki, for  identically in the grammar.]
being a chef unparalleled by any 
before.                            Executive Summary:
                                  1)                                 
                                    Change Ek+KE and GIhEk+KE to
        Grammar Changes            lowest precedence
                                  2)                                 
  The next section of this issue    Add JEk+BO construction
is the largest, and deals          3)                                 
primarily with changes to the        Add various new free modifier
grammar.  We first present the      locations
proposed changes to the Lojban    4)                                 
grammar baseline, which will        Add ZEI compounds
become official with book          5)                                 
publication.  Detailed discussions  Allow observative after GI in
of a few of these, recorded at the  forethought connected sentences
time they were proposed, will      6)                                 
reveal a bit about how the          Regularize BOI with free
decisions to change the grammar      modifiers
are made, and perhaps show that    7)                                 
such decisions are never made        Simplify relative-clause
lightly.                            connection to "zi'e" only
  The largest portion of this      8)                                 
discussion is devoted to the        Allow I+BO at the beginning of
change in Lojban relative clauses,  text
which is centered on Change        9)                                 
Proposal number 20, but also led    Allow bare NAI at the beginning
                                    of text


                                  45
according: x1 is a dimension of space / object x2 | to rules / model x3; ¯cimde


according: x1 is a family / clan / tribe with members x2 bonded / tied / joined | to standard x3; ¯lanzu (laz)


10)                                                                    30)                                 
according: x1 is a history of x2 | to x3 / from point-of-view x3; ¯citri (cir)
  Allow any kind of JOI in          Allow afterthought JOI in
  forethought                        termsets
11)                                                                    31)                                 
  Remove POhO                        Allow JOI+BO and JOI+KE parallel
12)                                  to E+BO, JE+BO, and JE+KE
  Allow full selbri after NIhE    32)                                 
13)                                  Allow JAI without following tag,
  Disallow NAhE in forethought      as unclefter
  termsets                       
14)                                                                    CHANGE 1
  Allow multiple I or I+BO at the  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
  beginning of text                  Currently, the logical
15)                                                                    connective constructs Ek+KE (and
  Allow conversion of abstract and GIhEk+KE) have higher precedence
  negated selbri                  (bind more tightly) than either
16)                                                                    Ek+BO (GIhEk+BO) or Ek(GIhEk)
  Allow ZAhO+NAI for contradictory constructs.
  negation of event contours      PROPOSED CHANGE:
17)                                                                      Give Ek+KE (GIhEk+KE) the lowest
  Merge LUhI into LAhE; make      precedence among Eks (GIhEks).
  NAhE+BO equivalent to LAhE      RATIONALE:
18)                                                                      In 1987 (NB3 = Notebook 3 TLI)
  Merge BRODA and LEhAVLA into    Loglan, the equivalent of Ek+KE
  BRIVLA                          and GIhEk+KE had low precedence.
19)                                                                    In the first Lojban baseline,
  Regularize rule names in YACC    Ek+KEs had been changed to high
  and E-BNF versions and update    precedence, and in the second
  comments                        baseline, GIhEk+KEs were changed
20)                                                                    to follow.  In writing the logical
  Revise grammar of relative      connective paper, considering
  clause incorporation in sumti    constructs like
21)                                        A .e B .ake C .e D
  ANNULLED                        suggested that the most reasonable
22)                                                                    interpretation is:
  Change description of Step 5 in        (A .e B) .ake (C .e D)
  preparsing to match reality      Therefore, this change restores
23)                                                                    the original Loglan situation,
  Allow CUhE to be logically      which supports that grouping.
  connected to other tenses;     
  forbid NAhE+KI                  CHANGE 2
24)                                                                    CURRENT LANGUAGE:
  Allow KI after CAhA (and          Currently, there is no way to
  including it) rather than before group tanru components logically
25)                                                                    in pure afterthought.  The only
  Disallow NA [tag] after CO in    alternatives are:
  inverted tanru                              X je Y ja Z
26)                                                                    which groups left to right
  Allow only selbri rather than              (X je Y) ja Z
  bridi-tail after NAhU            and
27)                                      X je ke Y ja Z [ke'e]
  Allow I, I+BO, NIhO after TUhE  which groups right to left
28)                                    X je (ke Y ja Z [ke'e])
  Create NAU+tag as a non-logical  but is a hybrid of forethought and
  connective (probably ANNULLED)  afterthought.
29)                                                                    PROPOSED CHANGE:
  Change MAhO from lerfu-to-        Allow
  operator conversion to mekso-to-          X je (Y ja bo Z)
  operator                        analogously to
                                            A .e (B .abo C)


                                  46
according: x1 is an heir to / is to inherit x2 from x3 | to rule x4; ¯cerda (ced)


according: x1 is polite / courteous in matter x2 | to standard / custom x3; ¯clite (lit)


in sumti.                          CHANGE 4
according: x1 is to the east / eastern side of x2 | to frame of reference x3; ¯stuna
RATIONALE:                         CURRENT LANGUAGE:
  Uniformity and flexibility.        There is no way to construct
                                  lujvo that involve le'avla or
CHANGE 3                          cmavo, unless the cmavo have been
PROPOSED CHANGE:                  assigned rafsi.
  Allow free modifiers (such as    PROPOSED CHANGE:
subscripts, vocatives, and          Add the metalinguistic cmavo
metalinguistic comments) in the    "zei" (selma'o ZEI) which will
following new places:              join the word before it and the
  after LOhO when not elided      word after it into a construct
  after LAhE for both sumti and    treated by the parser as of
MEX operands                      selma'o BRIVLA.  More than two
  after CO                        words can be joined by using
  after CEI                        multiple "zei"s.  The words "zo",
  after NU[NAI]                    "zoi", "la'o", "lo'u", "le'u", and
  after NA preceding a selbri or a "fa'o" cannot participate, since
GEk-bridi-tail                    they are delimiters of quoted
  after NAhE BO                    text, which will be resolved by
  after NAhE, except in tenses and the lexer before compounding with
within NAhE+BO (which are lexer    "zei".
compounds)                        RATIONALE:
  after TUhE                        Other methods of incorporating
  after TEhU when not elided      le'avla into lujvo are extremely
RATIONALE:                        error-prone and subject to a
  Increased flexibility.          multitude of special-case tests.
                                  No method of incorporating cmavo
                                  into lujvo has ever existed,
                                  encouraging speculative assignment
                                  of rafsi to cmavo that might be
                                  used in lujvo.  (TLI Loglan allows
                                  incorporating lerfu into compounds
                                  using a 'magic' compounding
                                  method.)
                                 
                                  CHANGE 5
                                  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
                                    It is not currently grammatical
                                  to say:
                                    ge mi klama le zarci gi klama fa
                                              mi le zdani
                                  PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Allow logically connected
                                  sentences wherein the first
                                  sentence has terms before the
                                  selbri but the second one does
                                  not.  (The reverse situation is
                                  still forbidden, because it looks
                                  like bridi-tail connection to a
                                  LALR(1) parser.)
                                  RATIONALE:
                                    The previous restriction was
                                  arbitrary and unnecessary.
                                 
                                  CHANGE 6
                                  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
                                    "boi" gets special treatment
                                  unlike that of all other elidable
                                  terminators.  In all other cases,
                                  free modifiers may optionally ap-


                                  47
according: x1 is to the north / northern side of x2 | to frame-of-reference x3; ¯berti (ber)


according: x1 is to the south / southern side of x2 | to frame of reference x3; ¯snanu


pear after the elidable terminator types (restrictive and non-
according: x1 is to the west / western side of x2 | to frame of reference x3; ¯stici
(in which case it can't be        restrictive).
elided).  Free modifiers must be    Mark Shoulson comments:  This
placed before "boi", however,        one I have some trouble with.
because "boi" is used to terminate  I'll concede that in most cases,
subscripts, and subscripts are a    GIhEks and the like within the
species of free modifier.            relative clause will suffice for
PROPOSED CHANGE:                    logical connection, but there
  Regularize the rules for "boi"    are some things that we lose by
so that it takes free modifiers      dropping ZIhEks.  For one thing,
after it, except that no free        how could we do logical
modifiers at all are permitted on    connections (other than "AND",
a "boi" that terminates a            of course) between restrictive
subscript.  ("ve'o" already has      and non-restrictive clauses?
this split personality:  no free    Granted, I can't think of much
modifiers if it is terminating a    of an application for such an
subscript, but allowed otherwise.)  animal, but it may be a needed
RATIONALE:                          construct.
  Simplicity and regularity.  A        Also, we lose logical
new convention is needed for        connections between NOI phrases
subscripts on subscripts, however;  and GOI descriptions.  This one
so we simply declare that            actually has applications.  For
consecutive subscripts are taken    example, a system of locking
to be nested.                        things on many MUDs (Multi-User
                                    Dimensions:  text-based, multi-
CHANGE 7                            user, user-extensible thingies
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                    that are sort of adventure games
  Multiple relative clauses can      or chat programs, (or something
only be placed on a single sumti    in-between) depending on how
by connecting them with logical      people choose to use them) often
connectives, namely ZIhEks.          works with methods like "A
PROPOSED CHANGE:                    person who is carrying the key,
  Eliminate ZIhEks except for a      or who is Herman, can pass
single cmavo, "zi'e" of selma'o      through this door."  In the old
ZIhE, which places two relative      method, this is neatly done with
clauses on the same sumti but does  "lo prenu poi ponse le ckiku
not count as a logical connection.  zi'a po'u la xerman. cuka'e
RATIONALE:                           pagre levi vorme".  No muss, no
  There is some doubt whether any    fuss.  In the new method, we'd
of the ZIhEks make sense other      have to expand out the "po'u" to
than "zi'e", which puts both        get "lo prenu poi ponse le ckiku
relative clauses into effect.        gi'a du la xerman. li'u", which
Unlike other logical connectives,    granted is okay, but loses the
ZIhEks cannot be split up into      whole point of having "po'u" in
multiple sentences.  The existing    the first place (it can always
implementation of ZIhEks was        be expanded).  (actually, an
incomplete, and did not allow the    even more Lojbanic translation,
full functionality of other          in the old grammar, would be "lo
logical connectives, and there is    prenu pe le ckiku zi'a po'u la
no easy way to make them work.      xerman.", taking advantage of
Analysis shows that the most        the symmetrical nature of "pe").
likely combinations of relative        John Cowan responds:  Mark has
clauses can be easily expressed        presented the first useful
with other types of logical            rationale for "zi'a" that I
connectives within a single            have ever seen:  "poi broda
relative clause.  The only            zi'a po'u la xerman."
restriction this places on the        Nonetheless, I still think
language is the as-yet-unused          that the logical problems of
situation of a non-AND connection      "poi broda zi'V noi brode" are
between two relatives of different    overwhelming; if we were going


                                  48
according: x1 is / reflects a pattern of forms / events x2 arranged | to structure x3; ¯morna (mor mo'a)


account: x1 is an | / bill / invoice for goods / services x2, billed to x3, billed by x4; ¯janta (jat ja'a)


    to split up NOI and POI (and  PROPOSED CHANGE:
accountable: x1 is responsible / | for x2 to judge / authority x3; ¯fuzme (fuz fu'e)
    GOI and PO) into separate sel-  Remove POhO.
    ma'o, there might be a        RATIONALE:
    rationale, but we aren't.        Earlier versions of the grammar
                                  required POhO, possibly due to an
CHANGE 8                          implementation weakness in the
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                 YACC version used in developing
  Currently, a text can begin with that grammar.  It is never
a bare ".i" or an I+JEk, but not  necessary because it can always be
with an ".ibabo".                  elided, so it serves no purpose
PROPOSED CHANGE:                  except to clutter the grammar.
  Allow I+BO, I+JEk+BO,           
I+tense+BO, and I+JEk+tense+BO at  CHANGE 12
the beginning of text.            CURRENT LANGUAGE:
RATIONALE:                          Only a restricted form of selbri
  Allows people to complete each  (simple selbri plus optional
other's expressions by adding      linked sumti) are currently
causals, presuppositions, and the  allowed after NIhE.
like.                              PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Allow any kind of selbri.
CHANGE 9                          RATIONALE:
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                    The former restriction was meant
  Theoretically a text may begin  to remove ambiguity, but now that
with "nai", and this bare "nai" is the TEhU delimiter has been
taken as attitudinal.  However,    introduced, it does the necessary
the parser does not currently      job, and so a full selbri is
handle bare initial "nai" in      permissible.  This grammar is also
embedded texts within quotes or    parallel to that of MOhE, which
parentheses.                      allows a full sumti.
PROPOSED CHANGE:                 
  Allow bare initial "nai"        CHANGE 13
explicitly within the grammar      CURRENT LANGUAGE:
rather than as a preparser hack.    In forethought termsets, a NAhE
RATIONALE:                        is allowed just after the NUhI.
  Uniformity and consistency.      PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Disallow this NAhE.
CHANGE 10                          RATIONALE:
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                    Nobody can figure out what it
  Forethought JOIks (also known as might mean to have a scalar
JOIGIks) are restricted in their  negation of a termset, a construct
syntax.  In particular, GAhO      which currently exists solely to
brackets are not permitted in      implement a certain kind of
forethought.                      logical connective.  What does it
PROPOSED CHANGE:                  mean to scalar-negate not a term
  Permit any sort of JOIk, so that but the logical connection of two
JOIGIks are any JOIk + "gi".      or more terms?
RATIONALE:                        COUNTER-ARGUMENT:
  Simplicity and uniformity, plus    Change 30 makes explicit the use
the ability to specify GAhO        of non-logical connectives in
brackets on forethought intervals. termsets, and scalar negation of
                                  such non-logical termsets makes
CHANGE 11                          some sense, possibly enough to
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                  justify the status quo, even
  Three kinds of fragmentary      though no usage has yet been found
utterances (bare I with or without to support it.
JEk or modal, bare number, bare    STATUS:
NA) currently have a special        This change has been
terminator "po'o" (of selma'o      incorporated in the current draft
POhO).  This terminator is always  of the new baseline, but will be
elidable.                          reconsidered at least once before


                                  49
accruing: x1 is a profit / gain / benefit / advantage to x2 | / resulting from activity / process x3; ¯prali (pal)


accuracy: x1 measures / evaluates x2 as x3 units on scale x4, with | x5; ¯merli (mel mei)


final baseline for book            CHANGE 14
achieve: x1 helps / assists / aids object / person x2 do / | / maintain event / activity x3; ¯sidju (sid dju)
publication.  If any Lojbanists    CURRENT LANGUAGE:
can propose an authentic use for    Only a single instance of I or
the construct, this will be        I+BO (and their related compounds)
considered in the final decision.  is allowed at the beginning of
                                  text (per change 8 above).
                                  PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Allow multiple Is or I+BOs
                                  consecutively.
                                  RATIONALE:
                                    Symmetry and simplicity.  With
                                  the elimination of POhO, multiple
                                  Is are now allowed at the end of
                                  texts and between sentences.
                                 
                                  CHANGE 15
                                  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
                                    It is not possible to convert an
                                  abstract selbri [NU + bridi] or
                                  one that has been (scalar) negated
                                  [NAhE + selbri].
                                  PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Allow these forms.  The place
                                  structure of [NAhE + selbri] is
                                  that of the original selbri.
                                  RATIONALE:
                                    Simplicity and uniformity.
                                 
                                  CHANGE 16
                                  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
                                    PU and FAhA allow -NAI for
                                  contradictory negation.  This is
                                  not very useful on tenses (punai =
                                  na pu), but very useful for sumti
                                  tcita to deny that the
                                  relationship holds.  ZAhO cannot
                                  take -NAI, although it is also
                                  useful as a sumti tcita.
                                  PROPOSED CHANGE:
                                    Allow ZAhO+NAI.
                                  RATIONALE:
                                    Consistency and general
                                  usefulness:
                                    mi morsi ca'onai le nu mi jmive
                                  I am dead, but it is not the case
                                    that this is so during my life.
                                 
                                  CHANGE 17
                                  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
                                    There are three kinds of
                                  qualifiers which can be prefixed
                                  to a sumti, giving another sumti:
                                  - LAhE provides indirect
                                  reference, indirect discourse, and
                                  sumti raising;
                                  - LUhI changes sumti between
                                  individuals, sets, and masses;
                                  - [NAhE+BO] provides sumti scalar
                                  negation.


                                  50
achieves: x1 succeeds in / | / completes / accomplishes x2; ¯snada


acid: x1 is a quantity of / contains / is made of | of composition x2; x1 is acidic; ¯slami


LUhI has terminator LUhU; the      CHANGE 18
acidic: x1 is a quantity of / contains / is made of acid of composition x2; x1 is; ¯slami
others have no terminators.  LAhE  CURRENT LANGUAGE:
is also allowed on mekso operands.  Technically, brivla fall into
PROPOSED CHANGE:                  three selma'o:  LEhAVLA (for
  Merge LAhE and LUhI into a       le'avla), BRODA (for
single selma'o, with the current  broda/brode/brodi/brodo/ brodu),
grammar of LUhI but named LAhE    and BRIVLA (for everything else).
(for compatibility with the past). PROPOSED CHANGE:
Allow the same grammar for sumti    Merge LEhAVLA and BRODA into
and for MEX operands.  Change      BRIVLA.
NAhE+BO grammar to be the same as  RATIONALE:
LAhE, thus allowing it on operands  The grammar is identical and the
as well.                          machine parser has never bothered
RATIONALE:                        to make the distinction anyway.
  Proposed changes to the sumti    It is a relic of long-ago pre-
grammar (including Change 20      baseline versions.
below) make LAhE and NAhE+BO messy
without terminators.  Merging them CHANGE 19
with LUhI allows greater          PROPOSED CHANGE:
generality (expanding the            Various rule names:
expressiveness of the language)    bri_string -> selbri
and simplicity, without needing to bri_unit -> tanru_unit
add a new terminator.  NAhE+BO is header_terms -> prenex
a compound and cannot be merged    utt_string -> paragraph
directly, but can be made          cmene_A_404 -> cmene_404
grammatically equivalent.          ekroot -> ek_root
                                  no_FIhO_PU_mod -> simple_tag
                                  sentenceA -> sentence_A
                                  indicators_412 -> indicators_A_412
                                  bridi_valsi_408 ->
                                  bridi_valsi_A_408
                                  JOIk_JEk_957 ->
                                  simple_JOIk_JEk_957
                                  PA_812 -> number_812
                                  PA_root_961 -> number_root_961
                                  BY_string_817 -> lerfu_string_817
                                  BY_string_A_986 ->
                                  lerfu_string_root_986
                                  modal_972 ->
                                  simple_tense_aspect_972
                                  modal_A_973 ->
                                  simple_tense_aspect_A_973
                                  modal_B_974 -> modal_974
                                  modal_C_975 -> modal_A_975
                                  BY_987 -> lerfu_word_987
                                  space_time_* -> space_* (where "*"
                                  stands for each of several
                                  letters)
                                  interval_mod_1050 ->
                                  interval_modifier_1050
                                  interval_prop_1051 ->
                                  interval_property_1051.
                                  RATIONALE:
                                    Consistency between the YACC
                                  grammar and the E-BNF version and
                                  other documents.  Also, this
                                  results in no two rules differing
                                  only in number.  (Some rules have
                                  the same names as selma'o,
                                  though.)


                                  51
acids: x1 is a quantity of protein / albumin of type x2 composed of amino; ¯lanbi


acquires: x1 gets / | / obtains x2 from source x3; ¯cpacu (cpa)


                                  RATIONALE:
acrid: x1 is bitter / | / sharply disagreeable to x2; ¯kurki
CHANGE 20                            The current grammar appears to
CURRENT LANGUAGE:                  group relative clauses with the
  (See JL18 text article!)        "inside set" of a description
  Relative clauses on descriptions sumti, that portion of a sumti
are grouped by the parser so as to including from the LE to the KU
attach to sumti before outside    which includes the inside
quantifiers are put on.  The      quantifier and not the outside
actual semantics of what is being  quantifier.  In the case of non-
attached has been pragmatically    restrictive "lo" descriptions, and
determined, and analysis has now  possibly some others, this is not
shown that this can theoretically  what is normally intended.
be vague/ambiguous or even lim-      Example:  "pa lo sipna noi
iting to expression in the        melbi" groups as "pa <lo sipna noi
language, though work-arounds      melbi>" apparently adding the
probably exist for all problems    incidental claim that "all
raised.                            sleepers are beautiful".
PROPOSED CHANGE:                    The problem manifests itself in
  Allow the distinction between a  various forms more completely
relative clause attaching to the  documented in a long paper by
"inside set", excluding external  Colin Fine, but the bottom line is
quantifiers, of a description.  A  that the existing grammar is vague
relative clause outside the KU    as to what a relative clause
will refer to the entire sumti.  A attaches to, and there are
relative clause inside the KU will definable cases where this
generally be preposed so as to    vagueness can lead to unacceptable
parallel the historical pseudo-    ambiguity.
possessive which is recognized as    The proposed solution has the
a transformation of an inside-set  secondary virtues of:
relative clause.  However,        1) making pseudo-possessives
postposed relative clauses will be visibly match the parallel inside-
inside by default, matching the    set relative clauses, but without
way in which the parser inserts    overt relative clause marking;
elidable terminators (i.e. only if 2) making it obvious how to
needed).                          express a pseudo-possessive with a
  Comparable expansion of the      quantifier ("le ci mi broda" is a
relative clause possibilities      complete sentence and not a sumti,
inside vocatives is incorporated  since "le ci mi" is a complete
in this proposal.                  sumti.  With preposed inside-set
                                  relative clauses, "le pecimi
                                  broda" is unambiguously a sumti.);
                                  and
                                  3) the problematical "[quantifier]
                                  [quantifier] [description]" is
                                  eliminated from the language
                                  (analysis can give a meaning for
                                  this expression of "[quantifier]
                                  lo [quantifier] lo [description]",
                                  and it has even been used once or
                                  twice, but experience has shown
                                  that the analysis is counter-
                                  intuitive to many people, who see
                                  also "[quantifier1] lo
                                  [description] [quantifier2]-mei"
                                  as plausible).
                                    Postposed inside relatives are
                                  allowed in all descriptions, so
                                  the preposed/postposed distinction
                                  becomes a forethought/afterthought
                                  distinction, which can be


                                  52
across: x1 is a bridge over / | x2 between x3 and x4; ¯cripu (rip)


across: x1 is located | x2 from x3; x1 is opposite x3; ¯ragve (rav)


valuable.  Existing texts retain 
across: x1 ranges / extends / spans / reaches | / over interval / gap / area x2; ¯kuspe (kup ku'e)
their currently official inside-        le    yes    no    noi
relative interpretation (unless          ci le sipna noi melbi
the KU is explicitly present, a      [ci (le su'oci sipna noi melbi
rarity), which is arguably                        ku)]
desirable as the default (though      3 of the sleepers, who are
it must be recognized that there              beautiful...
are text examples where the       
speaker obviously wanted to apply      le    yes    yes    poi
the relative clause to the exter-      re le ci sipna poi melbi
nally quantified sumti.)  The        re (le ci sipna poi melbi ku)
negative tradeoff of this is that    re le ci sipna ku poi melbi
KU becomes always required when    [re (le ci sipna ku)] poi melbi
you want an external relative      [The] two of the 3 sleepers who
clause.  (Other options were                are beautiful...
considered and rejected by the    The Lojban in this case makes the
net-based Lojban community.)        distinction based on presence of
  Preposed relative clauses (but    the "ku", forcing the speaker to
not relative phrases) will almost  think about the distinction when
always require a terminator,                  important.
though monosyllabic "vau" is                       
usually as applicable as "ku'o".        le    yes    yes    noi
  The following analyzes all            re le ci sipna noi melbi
definite and indefinite relative    re (le ci sipna noi melbi ku)
clause cases.                        re le ci sipna ku noi melbi
                                    [re (le ci sipna ku)] noi melbi
    Descriptor    External  inte  Two of the 3 sleepers, who are
rnal noi/poi                                  beautiful...
            quantifier    quantif The Lojban in this case makes the
ier                                distinction based on presence of
            present present        the "ku", forcing the speaker to
                                    think about the distinction when