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Discussion of "cmavrbai"
[parent] [root]
Comment #8: Re: Usefulness?
Wuzzy (Sat Apr 12 02:41:47 2014)

> But isn't it "zo bai cmavo zo bai"???
No. For the same reason I said it over and over again. The word “bai”
is not a selma'o. Words are not grammatical structure classes.
You probably wanted to say “zo bai cmavo la'e zo bai” or even “zo
bai cmavo la'e zoi gy.BAI.gy.” (“the thing referred to by the word
‘bai’/the string ‘BAI’”). The “la'e” is the crucial part
here. Although I would prefer the latter version, since the upper-case
strings are established (=they are explicitly mentioned in the CLL), but
the lower-case words are not establishd as words to refer to selma'o. If
you wanted to establish this kind of convention, it would be a good idea
to formalize this as well by working out a seperate list (“word
‘ABC’ refers to selma'o ‘XYZ’” etc.), just to be sure.
Alternatively, you can also say “zo bai cmavo lo cmavrbai”. As every
selma'o has a clear entry in the dictionary now, there should be
theoretically no confusion anymore, well, at least to those who know the
words or conventions.
But as I said, at the end of the day it is all just a matter of
convention. But the point is that there has to be at least SOME
convention.
TL;DR: Two safe methods to say some word is in some selma'o, in Lojban,
are:
1) “zo bai cmavo la'e zoi gy.BAI.gy.” (safe because every selma'o name
is documented in the CLL)
2) “zo bai cmavo lo cmavrbai” (safe because every selma'o has its own
fu'ivla and is documented on jbovlaste.
Dubious method (in my opinion):
3) “zo bai cmavo la'e zo bai” (dubious because there is no complete
list of valid selma'o-referring words yet. Also: Are other words from the
same structure class allowed to refer to the same selma'o? For example
“zo bai cmavo la'e zo du'o”. This can be fixed by working out such a
new list.)

> You are doing the same with your definition:
> x1 is the selma'o "BAI".
This is because English lacks the possibility to make this fine
distinction between words and the things referred to by words. There is no
English “la'e” as far I know. English is not Lojban, sorry. :-(

Comment #9: Re: Usefulness?
gleki (Sat Apr 12 04:13:06 2014)

if so "zo bai cmavo zo bai" is a completely useless construct.

Comment #10: Re: Usefulness?
Wuzzy (Sat Apr 12 11:05:54 2014)

gleki wrote:
> if so "zo bai cmavo zo bai" is a completely useless construct.
Yes. So what?

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