From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Feb 12 16:58:53 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 12 Feb 92 16:58 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA07966; Wed, 12 Feb 92 16:06:46 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA11833; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:52:51 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA08552; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:52:45 EST Message-Id: <9202122052.AA08552@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 5122; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:51:25 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 6360; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:50:42 EST Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1992 20:35:50 +0000 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Subject: re: Semantics To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO Bruce writes: > This is not specific to Lojban. _Any_ conlang is going to have this problem. > English uses the word "water" to denote at least two things: > 1. A chemical substance that could be more systematically designated as > "dihydrogen oxide," and > 2. The substance referred to in 1. when in its liquid form. > > I do not know if any conlang up to now distinguishes them (Language X will, > if I get my way, which I think will be the case) but neither of these meanings > quite corresponds to that of Japanese "mizu," which often is glossed as "water" > in translations. "Mizu" in fact, is best translated "cold water," though most [...] > Given Loglan's origin in SWH speculations, it is probably more imperative that > Lojban semantics devisors be aware of these problems than it is for people > working on other conlangs. But this is really a point for _all_ language con- > structors to wory about. If I was criticizing Lojban for a deficiency in semantics, I would criticize other conlangs a hundred times more on this score. I have great admiration for the work that has already been done on Lojban's semantics. John Cowan's stuff on masses versus sets has informed my understanding of *natural language* semantics too. My point was that Lojban - whose grammar is, unlike other conlangs, not derisory - should make the effort to extend the semantics and define the senses of le'avla. Mark writes: > This is just the "color" argument in not-very new clothing. To an English > speaker, "green" and "blue" are as different as could be wished, but a > language foo speaker might have the same word and not see the difference. > Even so the distinction between "cold-water" and "hot-water" where English > uses just "water". *Any* language, and any conlang, has to draw its line, > and that line will be arbitrary, and that's just the way it is. The line may indeed be arbitrary, but it ought to be drawn, and we should be given some indication of where it is drawn - or at least where the prototypical colours are. When, many months ago on Conlang, I suggested defining colours by use of Munsell chips, this was wrongly interpreted to mean I advocated rigid boundaries between colours. Rather, I meant to suggest that the typical instances of each colour be specified by referring to their Munsell number. From: Chris Handley > There are, as you say, always going to be problems mapping semantic > spaces on to each other. English and Dutch have about 300 different > words for things that float on water and carry people and/or goods; > most other languages have fewer than a dozen. > > What this means is that the foo/lojban/foo dictionary will have to > be produced by native foo speakers, who will have to decide how to > do the mapping in terms of foo. This is unnecessary if going only from foo into lojban. If the typical features of the sense of each lojban word are listed, then the foo speaker can decide for themself which lojban word best matches the foo word to be translated. --- And.