[lojban] Re: semantic primes

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

On 3/22/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>   Yes, this is
> THING in some sense or other, so indefinite as to
> include events, actions and the like.  How vague
> is {dacti} (I seem to recall some dispute about
> that or a similar word a long time ago but don't
> remeber the upshot).

Well, I think Lojban {dacti} covers people but not numbers,
whereas English "something" covers numbers but not people.
Lojban {da} covers both.

> > > Well, there is the logical argument for there
> > > being a single distinctive list of primes.
> >
> > A not very convincing one, for my taste.
>
> I'm never sure what will convince you of
> anything.  this eems pretty knock-down-drag-out:
> if there are no primes then all definitions are
> ultimately circular.  To be sure, we can avoid
> this in practical terms for a very long time,
> maybe forever, but the threat is always there in
> primeless systems.

But where is the argument that language, which is a practical
system that obviously works in practice, is not primeless?
Or, if it were based on primes, that there is one privileged
set over all others?

> > At first glance it seems rather inadequate. It
> > is not very clear
> > why they have so many pairs of opposites
> > instead of just having
> > OPPOSITE as a prime. (I'm not even sure how
> > they define OPPOSITE
> > in terms of their primes.)
> >
> I asked about that.  The simple fact is that many
> languages (English, for example) don't have an
> OPPOSITE that functions in the appropriate way
> (like Esperanto mal- or aUI y-).

What would be the problem with defining "bad" as
"OPPOSITE of GOOD"? Why would you need to have
a preffix meaning "opposite"?

>  Defining
> OPPOSITE may be a problem but it is relatively
> insignificant compared to the problems with color
> words, natural kinds and artifacts, most of which
> are dealt with so far by unreliable verbal
> pointing (green is the color of grass -- without
> using the words "color" or "grass" -- which only
> works for people that have grass (and can
> distinguish it in the definition, "things grow
> out of the ground," from trees and mushrooms)).

I would think that's a good definition for green, once you
have "grass" and "color" defined, and you could also add
"the color between such and such in the spectrum", so that
you have even more reference points.  I find "opposite", being
more abstract, more difficult to define in simpler terms.

> The curious thing is that these problems have
> been mentioned since 1972 for the project and
> amazingly little has been done to solve them,
> suggesting to the impatient observer that they
> cannot be solved within the present framework.
> And no obvious extension has turned up either.

Which makes the whole idea that everything can be gotten down
to a few dozen primes very dubious.

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.