From phm@A2E.DE Thu May 11 15:15:09 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19291 invoked from network); 11 May 2000 22:15:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 11 May 2000 22:15:09 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.camelot.de) (195.30.224.3) by mta3 with SMTP; 11 May 2000 22:15:09 -0000 Received: from robin.camelot.de (uucp@robin.camelot.de [195.30.224.3]) by mail.camelot.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA49620; Fri, 12 May 2000 00:15:07 +0200 (CEST) Received: from oas.a2e.de (uucp@localhost) by robin.camelot.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with UUCP id AAA49615; Fri, 12 May 2000 00:15:07 +0200 (CEST) Received: from localhost by wtao97 via sendmail with esmtp id for ; Thu, 11 May 2000 21:12:25 +0000 (/etc/localtime) (Smail-3.2 1996-Jul-4 #1 built 1999-Nov-8) Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 21:12:25 +0000 (/etc/localtime) X-Sender: phm@wtao97.oas.a2e.de To: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" Cc: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Centripetal-centrifugal, little-endian--big-endian, subsets-contents, etc. In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20000511063957.00adeca0@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: PILCH Hartmut > > > I am inclined to think that the fact that human languages fairly regularly > > > offer centrifugal constructions is itself evidence that the > > centripetal-only > > > thought pattern is not in fact the rule. > > > >The European languages are a tiny minority on the planet, but they have, > >not through language design merits, marginalised most of the others. > > Human languages are not designed, and are absolutely equal in terms of > "design merits". I didn't say anything that might contradict your statement, but I don't can't see any meaning in the "absolute equality" postulate either, except as an exhortation for linguists to avoid some frequent prejudice traps. > > > And, of course, none of this decides the structure of dates, since it is > > > equally possible (and, to me, more natural) to take the year as the > > > name of a > > > set and a month as specifying a subset within that set and the day as > > > specifying a unit subset within that and thus get dmy again but as a > > > centripetal structure. > > > >You mean something like > > > > the year 2001 . > > which year 20001 ? > > the year 2001 of the 5th month . > > of which month 5 ? > > the year 2001 of the 5th month of the 20th day . > > No. You are using English language to talk about set membership, and that > requires the subset first, hence as he said dmy results. I could use any language that I know of to make the same point. I also used Lojban before. > >but I fail to assign this any meaning. > > Because you tried to express English as ymd, and it doesn't work. I didn't try, but it does work: day 20 . which day 20 ? month 5 day 20 . which month 5 day 20 ? year 2000 month 5 day 20 . And it is not coincidental that the centripetal date format, while being alien to all of western Europe, has started making inroads in America. -phm