Subject: Re: [lojban] Beyond Whorf: "things," "qualities," and the origin of nouns and adjectives

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 23:36:21 GMT

la tipitr park cusku di'e

> All natural human languages that I know of [...]
>have (1) lots and lots of words of the type "stick, stone, [...]
>star", (2) lots and lots of words of the type "big, small, long,
>[...] dry," and (3) and lots and lots of words of the type "eat,
>drink, bite, [...] hear." This is true, as an empirical fact, of
>English, German, [...] and Lojban.

It is true of Lojban, although if we take place structures
seriously in Lojban classes (1) and (2) are much smaller
than in other languages, while most words fall in class (3).

Only one-place predicates can be of classes (1) and (2). All
others must be of class (3), because they don't refer to a
property or bundle of properties but always to relationships.
Thus the Lojban word {botpi} is not class (2) like the English
word "bottle". It does not refer to the bundle of properties
that make up a bottle, it refers to the relationship that
exists between bundles of bottle properties and bundles of
bottle contents properties. Similarly {barda} is not class
(1) like "big".

This may violate some universal that languages have lots
and lots of words (maybe most) in classes (1) and (2), but at
least as defined, most Lojban words are class (3): relationships.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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