WikiDiscuss

On 5/17/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> But the definitions given preempt their future
> use, where they might have served for some real
> need and now are stuck with a formulaic but
> useless sense. (People manage to ride over this
> kind of problem all the time, but it would be a
> courtesy not to stick them with it in the first
> place.)

I wish you'd come up with at least one suggestive
example of how this might happen. All this theoretical
speculation of what might be the case if we don't do
what we are doing is not very convincing.

> > None of the rules are exceptionless, but they
> > are quite extensive.
>
> Yes, things tend to turn out in a certain way,
> just as lujvo tend to fall into a small number
> (say two) of patterns. But that hardly is a
> basis for claiming that future items will always
> fall into the predominant pattern, as the
> definitions given here do.

For example, which definition do you find overly restrictive?

> Let actual usage
> decide; the remarks should give the sort of hints
> that might lead one to find a word that would
> work for a notion that one has in mind but ought
> not preclude the use of a rare — even so-far
> unexemplified — pattern.

For example?

> But so, of course, is the original listed form
> {ri'a nai} (indeed, it is better yet) even though
> its justification is not just in terms of
> patterns of connections between a BAI and some
> brivla, but rather in terms of general linguistic
> principles applied to such a connection (but note
> that even the connection is not actually
> necessary for finding uses for these forms,
> merely — as CLL says somewhere — suggestive, a
> mnemonic, not a definition).

I prefer compositionality to suggestive mnemonics
whenever possible, and in this case it is possible, so
my preference goes to {to'e ri'a nai} despite the two
additional syllables.

mu'o mi'e xorxes