Re: Off Topic: live cultures (was: Promoting Lojban)

[Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>]

la kris. cusku di'e

> On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, xod wrote:
>
> > > Show me a language that *doesn't* rely heavily on metaphor, and I'll
> > > show you a proglang. :^)
> >
> > Every library call is a metaphor.
>
> Not so. Libraries are additions to the 'dictionary' of primitive
> functions; they are lexical, not metaphoric.
>
> The lexicon is built up from primitives not by analogy with
> (prog)linguistic extra-(prog)linguistic context, but by the direct logical
> consequences of the primitves themselves. Metaphor is inherently tied to
> context, and proglangs are by design context-independent.

You are assuming that there _are_ such things as primitives - I'm not so sure
(though {ba'a} Anna Wierzbicka would agree with you, not to mention most
philosophers of language prior to Wittgenstein's "Philosophical
Investigations").  {pe'i} if there are things we could call "primitives"
{ru'a} they exist at a prelinguistic level (iconic, tactile etc.).

co'o mi'e robin.

{ta'o} if nobody objects, I'll fwd this to the cogling list, to see what the
people there make of it.