Lumturisto:"Artifikisto" is not in the PIV, and one cant see why not.

The point of the system of affixes and word-building in Esperanto is to shorten the vocabulary (and hence dictionaries). PIV or other vortaroj will not include every possible combination.

I dont know. I took the PIV to be normative (describing a standard,

...

(gaah, I hit "edit" instead of "reply" and messed up this message; I apologize profusely! -russ)

(Sorry i was trying to edit made a mess of it) I wanted to add that, if you refuse to play the consensus side of the game of language you are breaking the game. Chaos need no-chaos and viceversa.

As off today, *artifikisto is a no-word, it doest exist. It could have existed, can exist, should exist, will probably exist, but it doesnt. Is non-standard.
I can play coz I ov the cohrr

Lumturisto, some comments on your message.

For those who don't like to read long messages, the gist is this: Yes, there is consensus on words in Esperanto, it isn't simply word building ad infinitum. However, we use our word building constantly, it is an integral part of the language, and these "built words" are considered 100% valid in the language, in no way less valid than the "consensus" words, and furthermore, in most cases, the meanings of the built words are intuitively obvious to fluent Esperanto speakers, especially in context. That's the gist. Now for the explanations behind that:

Dictionaries do not contain every single valid word, in any language. I understand your argument about Esperanto word building, but I don't agree with it. Artifikisto is certainly a valid and correct word in Esperanto, just as "instruisto" is a word. Just because someone may not have used the word "artifikisto" before doesn't mean that it isn't a real word. The problem with Esperanto, and other agglutinative languages, is that it simply isn't possible to put every single combination of roots and suffixes into the dictionary. The root words will get in, and some common variants will get in, especially if the meaning of the word is not immediately obvious to any speaker of the language, due to the combination of prefix and suffix. Our dictionaries would be assumed to have fewer names of professions than other languages, simply because ours are more regularly formed. A baker bakes, but a doctor doesn't "doct". And a dentist doesn't "dent" either. But if you look at the Esperanto word "purigisto" (pur/ig/ist/o - janitor/person who cleans), and you speak Esperanto even at a basic level, it is pretty clear to you what this person does for a living. Similarly, an English-speaker would understand intuitively what a "cupcakemaker" does for a living, even though this word is probably not in any dictionary.

Collocation exists in Esperanto, of course. People learn words like "malsanulejo" nearly as if they were independent words, rather than affixes plus a root (mal/san/ul/ej/o, hospital). But in Esperanto we absolutely do use prefixes and suffixes on the fly, and we understand them easily and intuitively, especially if it makes sense in context. Let's take your "kombejo" word as an example. If you ask me, what's a kombejo? I might have to think about it. A place for combing? A place with combs? A place on my head that I like to comb? It's a bit generic, and hard to come up with a good translation without a context. But if there's a comb shop on the corner, and my friend says, hey, I'm going to the kombejo, I would understand perfectly.

Let me acknowledge that if a person strings together a long list of affixes on a root, in a way not commonly seen, it will absolutely take an Esperanto speaker a moment to parse it out and figure out what it means. But in the case of one or two affixes added to a root, it really is pretty intuitive, even if you haven't heard that particular combination before. And generally it is limited to one or two affixes on a root, so it isn't normally a problem.

If you really think about it, it works that way in English and other languages as well. In English, -er is often a suffix indicating a person's hobby or profession, or else a machine that does a task. A swimmer is a person who swims. A refrigerator refrigerates. Apply the -er ending to something that doesn't usually get it, and you'll probably have an idea pop right into your head about the meaning. A squisher squishes things. You have probably never heard of a squisher, but I'm sure that as soon as you heard the word, it was clear to you what it does. Similarly, on a trip to Italy, I once encountered a "Nutelleria". Now, a pizzeria sells pizza, a gelateria sells gelato, and an argenteria sells silver items (argento = silver). It was instantly clear to me, from far away, what the Nutelleria sold (things made with Nutella! Score!)

So the intuitive Esperanto understanding is not as strange as you might think. You could even consider it almost in the way of a child who doesn't yet speak a language well, and therefore speaks it "too regularly", since the child hasn't yet learned the exceptions. A child might hear of a baker who bakes and a swimmer who swims, and assume that a sewer sews, right? When a child mentions a sewer (pronounced sew-er, not like the word sewer), we are likely to understand that the child means a tailor or a seamstress. It's almost as if English, and other languages, have an affix system like Esperanto's, simply that it's not regularly applied.

Russ: revenge is in the way .; you would make a fine censor...Freudian slips, Freudian clips! I ll try to reconstruct what i wrote yesterday from memory before reading Erinja, and for some possible reader to make sense. I replied to Miland that I took PIV to be normative, ie describing a standard, so that if f.e. i dont find "kombejo" under kombi and find "frizejo" i understand that that is the form chosen and so learn it; even planned languages have a standard, we call i t language learning but actually is linguistic standards learning, because to learn something, first theres gotta be smthg there to be learnt, and that smthg is the standard; learning a non-standardized language is possible but a nightmare. That doesnt mean that I ll correct someone saying kombejo or that I dont like it, in fact i like it better "but i fiki myself and learn and use frizejo coz as you know e-o is a trans-egoic endeavour" (very proud of that phrase).I said dont care about crap of all languages have virtually all possible words and the like, but i was very impressed by certain recent studies showing how language is even more "collocative" than we already knew it was. Most of the time we speak by linking sort of little clichés that we have heard previously and are stored in memory; occasionally we go creative and that is the realm of puns, humour, personal touch, etc. But one part of the play of language need the other. If everybd speaks creat. all the time, no game of language. Then this idea from e-o propaganda that you can speak fluently by means of compounding as you go i deem ridiculous; no matter how wise the choice of the form and is regimen of prep. etc it selects and usual collocations, or if some regularity helps memory -which is good- you still have to memorize it and get exposure and do production so that this "clichés" linking ability is developed ="talk". Read enkonduko in PIV and you see this constant preoccupation for sources to give the lang its colls. One of many reasons no lang can be easy, coz simply is impossible, goes against the very nature of lang. I metaphored this in an image of big motorways and roads that is gone. Then i said that i understood Miland about consented gaps in lexicography as we do normally in latin lang. with advs., and that that can happen occasionally in PIV, but if you really use it you realize that normally doesnt unless a little bit with -e and -a forms (but i take it as index of low frequency) but never with -isto or -ejo from my examples. But all lexicographic work is imperfect, than maybe could be a real gap. "Magician" is not core but is not rare item either. Or, then, non-standard as I said. However I write in Piv with a pen okej, mojosa, etc, i insist, one has to play both sides. Was something like this. Now I ll see how wonderful -I mean it- Erinja bust my post.

Oh no. I feel completely unable to get my point to any home, was completely lost. And I was talking exclusively about PIV and my assumption of it standardizing purpose.
Every esperantist should read La ricerca della lingua perfetta de Eco, and some good handbook about standardology and lexicography to stop this nonsense. I wish everybody happy agglutination.

Lumturisto:Then this idea from e-o propaganda that you can speak fluently by means of compounding as you go i deem ridiculous;

Not sure what propaganda you're referring to there, but it's not something I've ever heard of or experienced when actually using Esperanto. Most of the time when you speak Esperanto you're not compounding at all; merely using compounded forms that have become so habitual that you hardly recognize their construction. And on those occasions when you do need to come up with a compounded form to express something for which you don't know the most usual word, in my experience it's not particularly difficult to come up with the right word or at least one that gets the meaning across in a way that will be well understood. This becomes almost second nature after a while and it's not, at least not in my opinion, something you could reasonably describe as a hinderance to fluent speech.

Certainly there are a great many fluent Esperanto speakers, and many more who don't speak it fluently but are able to make use of the word building and morphological features of the language to very good effect. To claim the Esperanto way of doing things dosn't work or is "ridiculous" does seem to me to fly in the face of over 100 years worth of evidence to the contrary. There's my 2 cents anyway.

And Toki Pona uses only compounds all the time using only 118 words!

tommjames:Most of the time when you speak Esperanto you're not compounding at all; merely using compounded forms that have become so habitual that you hardly recognize their construction.

Exactly, this is what I was defending, I worded it too harshly, sorry, and was rude too, what was I thinking. Plus I agree fully in the rest of your post. I do believe in the power of E-o to take you quickly to a pidging state of usage of the language, which is good, but in this discussion I was thinking more on further stages of command and the role of PIV as normative authority on it, because is sad if eo is gonna be only a pidging, and will never be taken seriously. Surely (we) deficient speakers get points across helped by context, but so what, that happens in any language. Some Chinese learner of English can say in the hospital example "place for ill" or something, and get the point across, just because is written with a couple of blanks inside makes no difference, linguistic typology makes no difference, in the end we all speak dialects of Humanish.
Previous posters seems to have an understanding of agglutination as if it allows one to infer linguistic forms from the "world" and so no need to standardize. This is what is dropped in propaganda and is what I cant swallow, maybe I am wrong, and feel is counterproductive, because lies have this bad habit of some day come out uncovered. I suppose they believe Turkish dictionaries are very thin. After all, whats the point of describing Turkish words, fixing their orthography, exploring thir figurative senses, giving examples that describe use, etc. People agglutinate and parse for themselves as the need arises!
And you talk of the PIV as it would be "a" dictionary. It is not "a" dictionary, is "the" dictionary, and if you say: it is not the dictionary, then I say: we need a dictionary that be the dictionary; and if you say: we need no dictionary that be the dictionary, then I am left very disappointed and worried and wondering if I am wasting my time with esperanto, because it will never be more than the pidgingnish (yeah, look how I use suffix -ish, and you understand!) play we semi-speakers play in the tujmesagxilo everyday. This situation of few speakers, most very deficient, having little daily contact and, to top it all, not acknowledging on an standardizing authority is sooo dangerous, real languages killer. What's the point then of "vote for Esperanto in schools"? If you make it to teach to children, one day one of them is gonna ask you: should I write "ilo konsistanta el" or "ilo konsistanta en" or "ilo konsistanta de". You will answer: I dont know, you choose yourself: in Esperanto everyone says what he pleases (kid will tell mom, mom will take kid out of eo class). Or alternatively you can furiously analyze the world in hopes its intrinsic nature will lead you unequivocally to a particular linguistic form. Good luck!

(Fortsetzung) Other option is: read PIV and authoritative authors often, allow your unconscious mind to absorb thousands of those sort of collocative things, allow its normative forms to keep you reasonably out of dozens of peripheral nonstandard alternatives, and very quickly you ll develop a nativelike feeling of the language, instead of eterna komencanto syndorme of those whose mind dont absorb much because mind refuse to absorb nefidinda production of semi-speakers. After having read some 20 definitions of iloj, konsistantaj el... without even thinking about it, one just "knows", same we native speakers of natural languages just "know" and "speak", they dont parse. If they'd do, they wouldnt speak fluently, but esperantist style "er er"... With such powerful composition, nominal forms, etc. systems Esperanto has, for any single notion must be in the order of 5-50 ways to do it. Many areas open = no language. Only way to go, fix them and learn them, one by one, through exposure, which in the end needs to be as big as in any other language (and for me, is not a tragedy, show your love with your sacrifice!).
Suppose I write "I was under the impression that PIV was normative", feels good? Suppose I write "I was under the thought that..." goody? Now, are you gonna tell me that theres something intrinsic in impressions that allow you to be "under" them, but not thoughts? Are you gonna tell me that some language can avoid this taking fly from basics according to its internal untangible "spirit"? No, no and no, it is just part of that big wonderful arbitrary conventional metaphor we call a language, and theres no way it can be otherwise. If you dont believe this, youre still centuries back with all those philosophers hunting down the "perfect language" (reflecting faithfully the world) Cannot be done, people, imposible a lexical unit not to be attached in a purely arbitrary conventional way to that dove-producing-woman-dividing guy. (Yeah, since we have no standard, I am gonna say "malsandomo" "konsistanta de" and "virindividisto": people will parse it up!)
Talking of guy, Guy must be appalled his "artifikisto" caused this row. All he wanted was to understand a joke; we are bigger joke, Im afraid: so naive, so conceited, so ready to dismiss and outsmart our predecessors. And I am left sad for them too...sad for those men who burnt their lifes working for us, for our language, making thousands of very delicate decisions that get more and more meandering into a bewildering maze which take tons of linguistic talent and intelectual prowess to navigate, to build from there into the big metaphorical edifice any mature language needs: their work is yet not fully understood.