Ubuntu Manpage: smujajgau - Dictionary builder for use with jbofihe and cmafihe

NAME

       smujajgau - Dictionary builder for use with jbofihe and cmafihe

SYNOPSIS

       smujajgau [-v]

       smujajgau dictionary-name [ file1 file2 ...  filen ]

DESCRIPTION

       smujajgau  is  a  program  that  reads  a set of English definitions for Lojban words, and
       formats them into a presorted dictionary for use by the jbofihe and cmafihe programs.  The
       dictionary is arranged for rapid access.

OPTIONS

       -v     Show the program version and exit.

       dictionary-name
              This  is  the  name of the formatted dictionary to be generated / modified.  If the
              file exists, the definitions in the other file will be  added,  replacing  existing
              entries where they clash.

       file1 .. filen
              The  source  files to be added.  Lines beginning with # are treated as comments and
              discarded.  Other lines should have one of the forms

       lojban:english

       lojban:english:comment

FILES

       /usr/local/lib/jbofihe/smujmaji.dat
              This file is the default location where jbofihe and  cmafihe  expect  to  find  the
              dictionary.  It should therefore be the default first argument to smujajgau (unless
              the software was installed to an alternative location.)

SPECIAL TRANSLATION FORMATS

Dictionary entries for brivla (gismu & lujvo) are expected to provide entries for each
place of the word. The English translation should indicate the type of the word and the
translation. The types are shown in the following table. In addition, the gloss for a
translation X is shown depending on the context where it will arise in the translation.
These defaults may be overridden.

│ ││ │ │ │
Letter │ Type ││ Noun │ Verb │ Qualifier │ Tag
───────┼─────────────┼┼─────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼─────────────────
A │ Act ││ X-er(s) │ X-ing │ X-ing │ X-er(s)
D │ Discrete ││ X(s) │ being X │ X │ X
S │ Substance ││ X │ being X │ X │ X
P │ Property ││ X thing(s) │ being X │ X │ X thing(s)
R │ Rev. prop ││ thing(s) X │ being X │ X │ things(s) X
I │ Idiomatic ││ thing(s) X-ing │ X-ing │ X-ing │ thing(s) X-ing

E │ Event ││ X(s) │ being X │ X │ X

To specify the dictionary entries, the lojban should take the form 'brivlaN', where brivla
is the word and N is the place number. One of the following may be suffixed to provide an
override of the defaults in the table : n v a or t (for noun, verb, adjective, tag
respectively.)

As an example, 'nanmu' might have entries

nanmu1:D;man

nanmu1n:D;man/men

whereas 'nandu' might have the definition

nandu1:P;difficulty

nandu2:I;have* difficulty

nandu3:S;conditions for difficulty

nandu3t:under conditions

a '*' is used in the places where the affixed -s, -er and -ing should be applied (instead
of putting them at the end of the English translation, which is the default.)

The 'places.dat' file included in the distribution shows many examples.

Where a translation with an 'n' suffix exists, this is used in place of some other default
forms in the table. For example, this allows special plural forms to be used in other
places (e.g. tags.)

The dictionary also supports some 'pattern' translations. This allows defaults to be
automatically generated for forms ending in '-gau', defined in terms of the prefix.

The 'Lojban' form for such patterns should be defined in the dictionary as '*Mprefix+N' or
'*M+suffixN' for prefix forms (e.g. nu+) and suffix forms (e.g. +zmadu) respectively. M
is the 'precedence' (5 highest, 0 lowest), defining the order in which prefix v suffix
matches will be attempted. N is the place number as usual. The letters n, v, a or t may
be suffixed to define a particular form if required, as for normal definitions.

The 'English' form is either a standard definition or a place redirection. In standard
definitions, the symbol % is used to mean the translation of the rest of the lujvo form.
Place redirections take the form @N, and mean that the lojban pattern form should be
translated as place N of the rest of the lujvo.

An example makes this clearer : zmadu.

*2+zmadu1:R;more %1q
*2+zmadu2:R;less %1q
*2+zmadu2t:than
*2+zmadu3:@2
*2+zmadu4:@3
*2+zmadu5:@4
*2+zmadu6:@5

The components are defined in terms of the full gismu forms, rather than rafsi (hence
zmadu rather than mau). This is necessary because the form of a rafsi can change when
components are added to or subtracted from a lujvo form.

When the 'English' form is given as '-', it indicates that the next components inwards
should be concatenated to form a new 'Lojban' form for lookup. This facility is only used
for one thing so far - to handle the rafsi 'zil' followed by the rafsi for a cmavo of
selma'o PA to puncture a place from the following form. An example (to delete the 1st
place of a word, e.g. zilpavykla) :

*4zi'o+1:-
*4zi'o+2:-
*4zi'o+3:-
*4zi'o+4:-
*4zi'o+5:-
*4zi'o+pa+1:@2
*4zi'o+pa+2:@3
*4zi'o+pa+3:@4
*4zi'o+pa+4:@5
*4zi'o+pa+5:@6

The pattern forms are all defined in a file 'patterns' in the distribution.

For cmavo, there are special forms used for certain selma'o, particular tenses. These
allow dependence on the context in which the cmavo is used. Logical connectives are also
defined in a special way. The file 'extradict' in the distribution provides examples.

(More documentation is required!)

BUGS

       ju'oru'e so'imei (Surely there are many).

REFERENCES

       http://go.to/jbofihe
              Home page for the jbofihe project

       http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/lojban/
              My Lojban page.

       http://www.lojban.org/
              Home page of the Lojban community

AUTHOR

       Richard Curnow <rpc@myself.com>

                                            April 2000                              smujajgau(1L)