o'a nai ro'e I seem to have been working under a mistaken definition of "polysemy". I also seem to have some memory of lojban fighting polysemy, but in this sense, I don't see how or why?
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 3:48 PM, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
Wikipedia defines polysemy (as opposed to homonymy) as:"Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the ‘inner’ one contributes to understanding of the ‘outer’ one.[3]"
I'm not sure blazer falls within that definition (at best it's #1 only). So maybe that's where my confusion lies.But I would have no problem with using singleton to mean "the only person who sleeps in a particular bed"--gejyspaOn Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 3:20 PM, .arpis. <rpglover64+jbobau@gmail.com> wrote:
My best intuition as to the difference is (forgive the Haskell programmer in me) whether the meanings are parametrically polymorphic or ad-hoc polymorphic. If the possible meanings of a word are semantically unrelated (the first example that popped into my head was "blazer" = "one who blazes" or "light jacket"), then a word is clearly polysemous, but if the penumbras are so intense that a native speaker would be surprised and confused if the word is used to refer to something outside one of them, that seems similar in practice to the polysemy.
On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
Your lojban is fine (although I'd use the simpler "pamei" for "singleton"). But I guess what I am curious about is your distinction between the two terms. It seems to me that you asserting that the difference is that one has a central meaning that is in use in many cases, whereas the other always refers to the non-central meanings. I'm not sure that is any kind of distinction that makes sense in lojban. But every word in lojban has penumbras of meaning. For example, if I talk of a bolci, am I referring to golf ball or a basketball? Does it matter? In truth, I don't think there can ever be such a thing as a "precise" meaning to a word in any language, because all language is are a way of classifying the universe/ideas. You can draw boundaries as small as you like to say what's inside one group as oppososed to oustside, but you can always draw other boundaries tighter or more relaxed.--So, bottom line is "don't worry too much about it"My two cents,--gejyspaOn Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 2:45 PM, .arpis. <rpglover64+jbobau@gmail.com> wrote:
--I've been wondering about this for a while (and may have asked before, but I don't recall being answered): where is the border between the two, and how does lojban address it?
{mi pu ze'a pensi la'e di'e (to ji'a ju'o cu'i mi pu te preti .i ku'i na morji lo du'u dafsku toi) .i fi ma sepli fa lo za'e sorsmu [to'i zo'oi polysemy toi] lo za'e smugri [to'i zo'oi clustering toi] .ije ma la'e di'u danfu ci'e la .lojban.}
(Incidentally to my question, I would appreciate input on my lojban.)I will illustrate with an example: the word "singleton" can mean "a set with exactly one element", "a single entity which makes all decisions", "an object (in the CS sense) which is only instantiated once", or "a type which has only one value"; I observe that all of these senses are special cases of the first (sometimes implicitly {se}-ed), but when I hear the word, I know that it refers to one of those and not, for example, "the only person who sleeps in a particular bed".
Obviously, part of this is context, but it feels to me like there's a difference between the context of the conversation and the context of the society. It would feel silly and facetious for me to say (pretending for a moment that {selte'i} is an adequate translation of "singleton") {mi selte'i lo ka sipna ti noi ckana}, even if it's technically true.
Uncommon words seem to take on a clustered, though not quite polysemous, definition: "It means this in the most general case, but it probably is being used for one of these more specific cases."
Anyone have any thoughts? Apologies for any incoherence... it sounded better in my head.
--
mu'o mi'e .arpis.
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mu'o mi'e .arpis.
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