From ragnarok@pobox.com Tue May 06 13:22:40 2003 Return-Path: X-Sender: ragnarok@pobox.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_6_6); 6 May 2003 20:22:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 44386 invoked from network); 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO smtp.intrex.net) (209.42.192.250) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from craig [209.42.200.60] by smtp.intrex.net (SMTPD32-7.13) id A57B18B002A8; Tue, 06 May 2003 16:05:15 -0400 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] measuring semantic space Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 16:05:20 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <10d.23f47ac0.2be96916@wmconnect.com> X-Declude-Sender: ragnarok@pobox.com [209.42.200.60] From: "Craig" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=48763382 X-Yahoo-Profile: kreig_daniyl >i don't know what the 35 minimal concepts that have been mentioned here are (any pointers, anyone?), but if i choose 5 concepts, something >is likely to get left out. if i choose 50 or 500, i think the same is true: something will get left out. btw, toki pona comes to mind as a >minimalist language. I can't find a list of the 35 anywhere, but the idea was suggested by Whorf as being at the heart of Nahuatl. He claimed that the forms of the 35 Nahuatl roots could be used to guess very well at the meaning of unfamiliar words. I have no idea how well substantiated this is, but it strikes me as a very unlikely - especially since Whorf had more expertise in Hopi, which is *related* to Nahuatl, and never made any such claims about Hopi having a minimal vocabulary. From ragnarok@pobox.com Tue May 06 13:22:40 2003 Return-Path: X-Sender: ragnarok@pobox.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_6_6); 6 May 2003 20:22:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 44386 invoked from network); 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO smtp.intrex.net) (209.42.192.250) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 May 2003 20:05:09 -0000 Received: from craig [209.42.200.60] by smtp.intrex.net (SMTPD32-7.13) id A57B18B002A8; Tue, 06 May 2003 16:05:15 -0400 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] measuring semantic space Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 16:05:20 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <10d.23f47ac0.2be96916@wmconnect.com> X-Declude-Sender: ragnarok@pobox.com [209.42.200.60] From: "Craig" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=48763382 X-Yahoo-Profile: kreig_daniyl >i don't know what the 35 minimal concepts that have been mentioned here are (any pointers, anyone?), but if i choose 5 concepts, something >is likely to get left out. if i choose 50 or 500, i think the same is true: something will get left out. btw, toki pona comes to mind as a >minimalist language. I can't find a list of the 35 anywhere, but the idea was suggested by Whorf as being at the heart of Nahuatl. He claimed that the forms of the 35 Nahuatl roots could be used to guess very well at the meaning of unfamiliar words. I have no idea how well substantiated this is, but it strikes me as a very unlikely - especially since Whorf had more expertise in Hopi, which is *related* to Nahuatl, and never made any such claims about Hopi having a minimal vocabulary.