[lojban] Re: semantic primes

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 3/22/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > 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.
>
> But it is definitely an existential quantifier,
> not a noun phrase -- and not quantitative ({su'o}
> -- a distinction hard to make in Lojban or
> English).

Not sure what you mean. Wierzbicka lists SOMETHING/THING as
a substantive, together with I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE and BODY,
and SOME as a separate quantifier, together with ONE, TWO, ALL
and MANY/MUCH. So at least in their system it seems to be a noun
phrase.

> Well, there is the logical argument for there
> being a single distinctive list of primes.

A not very convincing one, for my taste.

>  I think that ultimately a universal
> set of primes is called for, whether the NSM set
> or another (and it is unclear that the NSM set is
> adequate, despite the best efforts of its supporters).

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.)

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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