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Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:07:01 -0300
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From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" <lojban-out@lojban.org>
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Subject: [lojban] Re: semantic primes
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On 3/22/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> No one claimed they were built up from others in
> any sense but that it is possible to define all
> concepts starting from just a few (relatively
> speaking).  The alternative is to say that a
> language (it would only take one to make the
> point) cannot completely define its vocabulary.

Consider these two theses:

(A) Most concepts can be very well defined in terms of
other concepts.

(B) Every concept (except a selected few) can be perfectly
defined in terms of other concepts.

I don't think anyone would have much to argue against (A), it is
pretty much an observable truth. (B) is a much harder nut to
swallow.

And that's just about concepts. When it comes to words, things get
much more muddied. Words generally point to a conceptual area more
than to a strictly delimited concept, and the concept they bring up
in a given use varies depending on other words used in their context.
So defining a word is much more tricky than defining a concept.

> The most one could get would be overlapping
> partial definition sets, with the bottom level of
> one set being at a higher level in some other(s).
>  As a practical matter, given a finite span of
> concern, this is sufficient pehaps, if we don't
> get caught in a circle.  For a theory, however,
> it is a disaster, since it means that a language
> can only be completely defined in another
> langauage and so on to an infinite regress.

And the thesis that a language can be "completely defined" must
be taken as self-evident?

> As
> usual, it seems best to stop at the first step if
> possible.  NSM holds that it is possible for each
> language and furthermore that the initial step in
> every language is the same (directly
> intertranslatable).

Yes, it's an attractive thesis, but not a very convincing one from
the evidence at hand.  And I don't see the "logical argument"
for it yet.

> > The definitions I've read for other concepts
> > don't look much like
> > fixed expressions.
>
> I don't follow this, I think.  Do you mean that
> in other languages, the words that correspond to
> the  concepts are not fixed expressions?

No, I haven't seen the proposed sets for any language other than
English. I'd be interested to see the corresponding set proposed for
Spanish for example, but I wasn't able to find it.

> If you
> can make that case for any language you have shot
> down the NSM project in its present form, since
> that fixed form is a requirement to be a prime.
> If you mean that NSM definition (strictly
> "reductive paraphrases") don't seem to be in
> fixed form, I'd like to see a case.

Well, I've only seen two or three NSM definitions given as examples. Is
there a comprehensive list of definitions somewhere?

For example:

NSM definition of loves [2]
Person-X loves Person-Y =
X often thinks about Y
X thinks good things about Y
X wants to do good things for Y
X wants good things to happen to Y
when X thinks about Y, X often wants to be with Y
when X thinks about Y, X often feels something good

(From this I now gather that the prime THINK is {pensi} and not
{jinvi}. I also notice a few non-primes there, but I guess they
have already been pre-defined.) Now, given that, what would be
the problem of defining:

X is bad =
X is the opposite of good

How is that less of a fixed expression than the expressions used
for "loves"?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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