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

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 23:55:18 GMT

la ivAn cusku di'e

>Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > 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.
>
>But so do many of the natlangs' nouns and adjectives. What about
>such relationships as `father', `friend', `part/piece'? They are
>nouns (under whatever definition might be applicable) in every lg
>in the world, but they denote two-place relations.

Yes, those I would expect to be class (3) as well. And so are
things like "under", "behind", "after", "between", and so on.
These are certainly not empty words even though they aren't
adjectives, nouns or verbs in English. Classes (1), (2) and
(3) as defined are not perfect matches for English adjectives,
nouns and verbs.

And indeed they aren't even strict classes, as concepts really
fall in a continuum with those three as general areas.
Adjectives like "exquisite", "efficient", or "recalcitrant"
don't sound to me like pure properties, they're more of a
bundle than "big", "blue", or "fast". But then they are not
as tightly packed bundles as "cat" or "telephone".

What I wanted to stress was that Lojban has a very strong
slant towards class (3) words. Indeed the few class (2) words
that Lojban has seem a bit out of place, like {sfofa}.

>Why is _fire_ a noun and _burn_ a verb, btw? Don't they denote
>the same part of reality (a process, as it happens)?

Maybe the same part but seen from different angles.
The input is what burns, the output is what's fire.
Fire can burn in the transitive sense.
Burns can fire Homer Simpson (my apologies).

> > 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.
>
>Which is just why it provoked so much debate here. We want to name
>entities -- entities that are more than bundles of properties -- by
>stating (the) categories to which they belong. Thus a bottle is not
>a bottle because it actually or potentially bottles something; it is
>a bottle because it is a vessel with a narrow neck.

Right, but we don't have in Lojban a word for the vessel with
a narrow neck, the closest thing we have is a word for the
relationship that such vessels tend to have with other usually
liquid objects.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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