[lojban-beginners] Re: dicussions about basic vocabulary

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Wednesday 23 May 2007 14:50, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 07:47:06PM +0200, m.kornig@sondal.net wrote:
> > Or is it some intrinsic feature of Lojban itself? Meaning that the
> > Lojban vocabulary is not well defined (yet)?
>
> Yes.

I say that the intrinsic feature of Lojban is that it divides semantic space 
differently than other languages you know. It uses something much like a verb 
to express what in European languages are expressed with nouns, so when you 
pick a word for "neighbor", the word you use depends on what goes in place 2. 
Also it has different semantic criteria for picking which word to call 
something; this happens with any two languages, and happens more the less 
related they are. E.g. bottles and jars are both botpi, the ctile/grasu 
distinction isn't the same as the oil/grease/fat distinction.

phma