Re: [lojban] Are Natlang the best case for entropy in communication ?

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Tuesday 14 August 2012 12:30:49 MorphemeAddict wrote:
> Like French "dessous" ('underneath') vs. "dessus" ('over'). The only
> difference is [u] vs. [y]. Apparently the French have no problem with it
> (or do they?), but it seems like a big problem to me.

Doesn't seem like a big problem to me, though I once made a tonguetwister out 
of similar words: "La roue sur la rue roule; la rue sous la rue reste." I 
know several semantically similar minimal pairs in natlangs:
hu: tizenegyedik (eleventh)/tizennegyedik (fourteenth). This requires both 
using the ordinal (four is négy, with a long vowel) and adding a multiple of 
ten to get the double n (and first is első).
es: sesenta (sixty)/setenta (seventy). This does cause me problems.
fr: il (he)/elle (she)
pt: ele (he)/ela (she)
en: he/she. Unlike the preceding two pairs, these are unrelated.
Tz'utujil: ka'- (two)/kaj- (four) and waq- (six)/wuq- (seven). The root for 
eight is waqxaq, which may lead to further confusion.
I don't know of semantically similar quints in natlangs.

Pierre
-- 
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

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