4.6 rafsi
- Example 4.29
- nancyprali
- from nanca prali
- “year profit” or “annual profit”
- Example 4.30
- prunyplipe
- from pruni plipe
- “elastic (springy) leap” or “spring” (the verb)
- Example 4.31
- vancysanmi
- from vanci sanmi
- “evening meal” or “supper”
In addition to these two forms, each gismu may have up to three additional short rafsi, three letters long. All short rafsi have one of the forms CVC, CCV, or CVV. The total number of rafsi forms that are assigned to a gismu depends on how useful the gismu is, or is presumed to be, in making lujvo, when compared to other gismu that could be assigned the rafsi.
For example, zmadu (“more than”) has the two short rafsi zma and mau (in addition to its unreduced rafsi zmad and zmadu), because a vast number of lujvo have been created based on zmadu, corresponding in general to English comparative adjectives ending in “-er” such as “whiter” (Lojban labmau). On the other hand, bakri (“chalk”) has no short rafsi and few lujvo.
There are at most one CVC-form, one CCV-form, and one CVV-form rafsi per gismu. In fact, only a tiny handful of gismu have both a CCV-form and a CVV-form rafsi assigned, and still fewer have all three forms of short rafsi. However, gismu with both a CVC-form and another short rafsi are fairly common, partly because more possible CVC-form rafsi exist. Yet CVC-form rafsi, even though they are fairly easy to remember, cannot be used at the end of a lujvo (because lujvo must end in vowels), so justifying the assignment of an additional short rafsi to many gismu.
The intention was to use the available “rafsi space”- the set of all possible short rafsi forms – in the most efficient way possible; the goal is to make the most-used lujvo as short as possible (thus maximizing the use of short rafsi), while keeping the rafsi very recognizable to anyone who knows the source gismu. For this reason, the letters in a rafsi have always been chosen from among the five letters of the corresponding gismu. As a result, there are a limited set of short rafsi available for assignment to each gismu. At most seven possible short rafsi are available for consideration (of which at most three can be used, as explained above).
Here are the only short rafsi forms that can possibly exist for gismu of the form CVC/CV, like sakli. The digits in the second column represent the gismu letters used to form the rafsi.
CVC 123 -sak- CVC 124 -sal- CVV 12'5 -sa'i- CVV 125 -sai- CCV 345 -kli- CCV 132 -ska-
(The only actual short rafsi for sakli is -sal-.)
For gismu of the form CCVCV, like blaci, the only short rafsi forms that can exist are:
CVC 134 -bac- CVC 234 -lac CVV 13'5 -ba'i- CVV 135 -bai- CVV 23'5 -la'i- CVV 235 -lai- CCV 123 -bla-
