From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Mar 23 15:01:46 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:01:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMYo3-00012B-ME for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:01:27 -0800 Received: from web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.199.117]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMYo2-000123-DQ for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:01:27 -0800 Received: (qmail 6558 invoked by uid 60001); 23 Mar 2006 23:01:24 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=EQSu7KmCN7g0iPOMXyuFRlgKh3hYk4e5RNibel3NWjbl9rePEmVwCdYo9PxjWFJT1DyH5pLwo843TZixx9PnDwAaN4rXMBpepGeaLl40axjenKBY97t2lSOlRLndUXKgDWbc5XXCSv76x1g0K+QnZMYB86r62/kIkf24UEpWcaI= ; Message-ID: <20060323230124.6556.qmail@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Received: from [70.230.183.14] by web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:01:24 PST Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:01:24 -0800 (PST) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: semantic primes To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: <925d17560603231124g648d67eaj6d65ad9576d57bab@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -0.6 (/) X-archive-position: 11232 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- Jorge Llambías wrote: > On 3/23/06, John E Clifford > wrote: > > --- Jorge Llambías > wrote: > > > > > And the thesis that a language can be > > > "completely defined" must > > > be taken as self-evident? > > > > No, it is a hypothesis being tested. the > test, > > of course, assumes that it is true and works > on > > from there. Should the tests ultimately > fail, > > then the hypothesis would have to be > abandoned. > > However, that part of the hypothesis has a > good > > deal of prior probability, given the > arguments > > above and our actual experience. > > I guess we've identified the crux of the > disagreement then. > As far as I can tell, that part of the > hypothesis has very little > prior probability given our experience. I would > tend to believe > it is false. Well, I don't know about your experience, of course, but in my experience, difficult concepts can be -- and are -- defined in terms of more basic ones and, if pushed on, the process eventually comes down to something where I say "Gee, if you don't know what that means, I don't see how I could explain it to you." That is, the overall scheme of NSM looks to me like what we in fact do. That the cases where we have to say the above comprise a very small set and that the set is universal are less likely, of course. > ... > > But, more strongly, it turns out that every > > concept eventually leads to some undefinable > > concepts (else some concepts would have > infinte > > definitions, which, as noted above, are not > > definitions at all -- i.e., these are > > indefinable). > > Or that every concept is itself undefinable in > the strong sense. Ah, now that is an interestingly different point. But it does seem that at least some are, even in a strong sense (short of "everything is definable"). This position is not going to get much traction, since it makes systematic semantics impossible. It may eventually turn out to be true, of course, but it is way too early to consider it seriously. And in the mentime we seem to be generating a lot of counterevidence (not merely in NSM but in other semantic theories as well). > > Thus, pooling these resources, we > > get a set of undefinable concepts in terms of > > which all the others are defined. > > That's the main NSM hypothesis. Attractive, but > highly unlikely > from my perspective. What part of the argument leading to this point do you either not understand or disagree with (and, if the latter, what is your counter case)? If every concept eventually leads back to an undefinable, then the class of these undefinables will be the primes. They may be a lot more than NSM expects, but that is a mere detail in the general scheme, not affecting the basic result. > > NSM's steps > > beyond this are to claim that this set is > small > > (around 100, say), that it is the same in > every > > language, and that this [a given list] is it. > > All these later steps are open to challenge > as is > > the notion of a complete definition, but the > > heart of the argument remsins. > > Well, without the notion of complete definition > everything > else seems to fall apart. But it is essential to the notion of definition as intended in semantic theory. Now, you can say "Screw semantic theory" but the argument is one within semantic theory, so for that field the dismissal is not available. > > > X is bad = > > > X is the opposite of good > > > > > > How is that less of a fixed expression than > the > > > expressions used > > > for "loves"? > > > > Well, if you can work out a case for English, > I > > suppose the reason for rejecting it would be > in > > some Austronesian language. > > Ah, that's a good way out. :) Yeah, and a lot of people take it on both sides, which makes some of the arguments hard to follow and impossible to evaluate. > > But notice that your > > definition is not one of the canonical form > and > > the NSMers insist that the sentential forms > > allowed are as much a part of the system as > the > > concepts. > > That's another good way out. I suppose the > "canonical form" is > something too complicated to explain in a few > lines? Au contraire, in any given language and for each word, it is a simple expression that is available to every competent speaker of the language (say adult or some such neutral criterion). For the most part the canonical forms can be specified by a few lines in EBNF. And, of course, they can be expanded as definitions are developed. > > What would be the paradigm sentence > > for for OPPOSITE (or THE OPPOSITE OF)? > > I'll leave that to the NSMers, assuming they > want to include it > as a prime. (Don't non-primes require paradigm > sentences too?) Well, in a way: each reductive paraphrase is for a particular locution and so a different locution involving the same non-prime would require some sort of transfer mechanism, typically, I suppose, provided by the grammar of the language. 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