[lojban] Re: semantic primes

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

On 3/22/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>   I suppose that,
> if language never involves its own definitions
> (which is possible but rarely occurs in
> practice), then the argument doesn't have any
> force.  But I would think that the ability to
> define itself is inherent in language and thus
> the argument applies -- even as a practical
> matter.

I'm afraid I don't see what the argument is. Language works in
practice, that's clear. Language can be used to talk about
language, you can define one part in terms of other parts, that's
also clear. What is not at all clear is that some part of language,
some concept, has to be taken as primal, this is not something
at all obvious. My impression is that all concepts generally play
off of one another, not that they are all built upon some fundamental
ones.

> > What would be the problem with defining "bad"
> > as
> > "OPPOSITE of GOOD"? Why would you need to have
> > a preffix meaning "opposite"?
>
> Oh, it doesn't have to be a prefix, just a fixed
> expression of some sort.

The definitions I've read for other concepts don't look much like
fixed expressions.

> And the problem of
> defining "bad" as the opposite of "good" is that
> this definition does not give an adjective in
> form; that is, it is not a definition in NSM
> terms.

Not all languages have adjectives though, so if it's important
that GOOD and BAD are adjectives, they can't be universal primes.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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