[lojban] Re: semantic primes

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 3/21/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the list.  Mine came out a bit
> different, largely because of different readings
> (apparently) of either the NSM list or of the
> Lojban.

Any interesting difference worth mentioning?

> The NSM list, since the words are
> primes, does not get a lot of explanation,
> although the issue of Theoretical Linguistics on
> NSM (v. 29, #3) does clarify a few by giving
> unambiguous (well, much less ambiguous) frames
> taken as decisive.

I later found a couple of articles with some examples, so some
of them were a bit more clear. For example "SOMETHING"
does not have to be an object, it can also be an action, as in
"I do something", but presumably it cannot be a person, so
there is no direct equivalent in Lojban {lo dacti} covers too little
and {da} covers too much.

> The Lojban-Lojban section of
> jbovlaste is a step in the right direction,
> lacking mainly a definitive list of primes and of
> normative contexts for definitions.  And, of
> course, covering more words.

Yes. I don't really believe in definitive lists of primes, but I do
believe that defining things in terms of simpler concepts is
worthwhile.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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