From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Tue Feb 11 10:10:23 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Tue, 11 Feb 92 10:10 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA02124; Tue, 11 Feb 92 09:48:45 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA28435; Tue, 11 Feb 92 09:40:38 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA03978; Tue, 11 Feb 92 09:40:42 EST Message-Id: <9202111440.AA03978@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 1582; Tue, 11 Feb 92 09:39:03 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 3503; Tue, 11 Feb 92 09:38:43 EST Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1992 09:35:03 EST Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Semantics X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: "61510::GILSON"'s message of Mon, 10 Feb 1992 16:27:00 EST Status: RO >Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1992 16:27:00 EST >From: "61510::GILSON" >And Rosta writes: >>For example, is a _mruli_ ('hammer, weighted stick tool used for unspecified >>purpose') typically used for hitting? If one uses a weighted stick tool >>for some other purpose, e.g. raking leaves, is it a _mruli_ or should >>some other word be sought? Could one call an instrument used for >>hitting a _mruli_ even if it isn't a weighted stick, or should one >>seek another word to avoid being misunderstood. Is a bottle more of >>a botpi than a cup? A bowl? A chalice? An amphora? My feeling on this is uncomfprtably ambiguous. When I see {mruli} used with a LE word, then I think of a standard hammer. But used as a selbri, I figure something more along the lines of "is used as a hammer", so I can see {lo rokci cu mruli pi'o mi}, "a rock 'hammers' as-used-by me". Maybe to be clear I'd do {lo rokci sepi'o mruli pi'o mi}, "a rock is-usingly a-hammer used-by me", using the tense aspect of BAI. I'm playing with such things wrt a translation of the tower of babel story. I suspect it's a non-lojbanic way of looking at things, and I'm not happy with it yet. >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 >times when one sees "mizu," in fact, it would do no harm to translate it as >just "water" because the relevance of its temperature is not there. The point is >that, if a Lojban, Esperanto, etc. word is glossed as "mizu" in Japanese, he >will look in vain for another word to mean "yu" (= hot water) which to him is >as different from "mizu" as "steam" is from "water" in English. Since the over- >whelming majority of Lojban users are native speakers of English, I suspect >that most of them do not even realize when they may be defining a word in a >way that will cause trouble, even given the existence of the concept of >"malglico." 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. ~mark (shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu)