From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Mar 23 11:29:52 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 52434 invoked from network); 23 Mar 2006 19:29:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m29.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 23 Mar 2006 19:29:51 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 23 Mar 2006 19:29:51 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMVRq-0004Pb-1S for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:26:18 -0800 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMVQL-0004NJ-N6; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:47 -0800 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMVPv-0004N7-Ud for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:20 -0800 Received: from wproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.184.193]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1FMVPr-0004N0-Md for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:19 -0800 Received: by wproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i32so518652wra for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:09 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.54.100.7 with SMTP id x7mr363060wrb; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:08 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.54.126.9 with HTTP; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:24:08 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <925d17560603231124g648d67eaj6d65ad9576d57bab@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:24:08 -0300 In-Reply-To: <20060323170801.1182.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560603230607o56c91fa3h2a4e93ddaa27f106@mail.gmail.com> <20060323170801.1182.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11231 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0:0 X-eGroups-From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" Reply-To: jjllambias@gmail.com Subject: [lojban] Re: semantic primes X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=_A0pp_AIt0pGbRk-jce6F3v_aWFvwq-AuEtx1bikKDdibGvJWw X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 25641 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. ... > 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. > 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. > 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. > > 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. :) > 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? > 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?) mu'o mi'e xorxes To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.