Why do PA are such?

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Question

Why do particles of the class PA have the consonants they have?

no pa re ci vo mu xa ze bi so

With vowels it's well known that they follow AEIOU pattern but what about consonants? Why these, not other consonants were chosen?

Answer

  • la lojbab:
    1. They had to be different from each other.
    2. They had to be strongly contrasting against other numerals with the same vowel (hence pa/xa ci/bi and not pa/ba ci/ji or pi/bi).
    3. They could not disrupt other paradigms (systems of cmavo) that had good claims to either history or practicality:
    • Once those constraints were set, there weren't all that many contrasting CV choices that also allowed the vowel pattern. Certainly not any that allowed a consonant pattern (as there is with hex digits where the consonants are contrasting and alphabetical). There is a visible trace of an attempt to make them alphabetical no/pa/re vo xa/ze but there were too few uncommitted CVs to make it work.