Re: [lojban] Re: semantic primes

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/23/06, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > --- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> 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.

Well, I don't know about your experience, of
course, but in my experience, difficult concepts
can be -- and are -- defined in terms of more
basic ones and, if pushed on, the process
eventually comes down to something where I say
"Gee, if you don't know what that means, I don't
see how I could explain it to you."  That is, the
overall scheme of NSM looks to me like what we in
fact do.  That the cases where we have to say the
above comprise a very small set and that the set
is universal are less likely, of course. 

> ...
> >  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.

Ah, now that is an interestingly different point.
 But it does seem that at least some are, even in
a strong sense (short of "everything is
definable"). This position is not going to get
much traction, since it makes systematic
semantics impossible.  It may eventually turn out
to be true, of course, but it is way too early to
consider it seriously.  And in the mentime we
seem to be generating a lot of counterevidence
(not merely in NSM but in other semantic theories
as well).
  
> > 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.

What part of the argument leading to this point
do you either not understand or disagree with
(and, if the latter, what is your counter case)?
If every concept eventually leads back to an
undefinable, then the class of these undefinables
will be the primes.  They may be a lot more than
NSM expects, but that is a mere detail in the
general scheme, not affecting the basic result.

 
> > 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.

But it is essential to the notion of definition
as intended in semantic theory.  Now, you can say
"Screw semantic theory" but the argument is one
within semantic theory, so for that field the
dismissal is not available.
 
> > > 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. :)

Yeah, and a lot of people take it on both sides,
which makes some of the arguments hard to follow
and impossible to evaluate.
 
> > 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?

Au contraire, in any given language and for each
word, it is a simple expression that is available
to every competent speaker of the language (say
adult or some such neutral criterion).  For the
most part the canonical forms can be specified by
a few lines in EBNF.  And, of course, they can be
expanded as definitions are developed.

> > 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?)

Well, in a way: each reductive paraphrase is for
a particular locution and so a different locution
involving the same non-prime would require some
sort of transfer mechanism, typically, I suppose,
provided by the grammar of the language.