Re: basic morphemes of a loglang

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 06:32:44 +0000, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>And what compound does one have for "mushroom"? 'edible-fungus' won't do
>because many types of fungi, besides agaricus campestris are edibled? If
>we're
>not careful we'll end up with three morphemes which in BrScA would be nine
>letters (one again, 1 more than the English equivalent.
"Atomic bomb fungus"? :-)

Well, the main kinds of fungus you'd want to be able to distinguish are
mushrooms, yeast, and mold ... yeast could be "bread fungus" (but that
might also be mold ...) Then there's smut (or "huitlacoche" if you're
eating it in soup), which could be "corn fungus". But there ought to be a
simple word for mushrooms, since they're such an important element of Mario
games. (!)

This isn't so much of a problem for Lojban since it has well-defined rules
for borrowing, but any language that builds all of its vocabulary from
pre-existing elements without borrowing is going to have to find some way
to accommodate the vast vocabularies of words related to plants, animals,
food items, musical instruments, rocks and minerals, physical substances,
social customs and traditions, etc.

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