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<DIV><FONT size=2>Thanks, Greg. I understand what you are saying about using
your three different kinds of semantic taxonomies for displaying lexical data
and probably also as heuristics (discovery procedures). I may be missing
something, but I still do not understand how we could call a display of the
words of a language its lexicon if that display was not organized according to
the semantic domains of that language and the cultural context and worldview of
its speakers.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>I think that Ron's DDP approach is one of the most helpful
workshop and heuristic programs to come along. But it and no other semantic
taxonomies developed by outside researchers can ever really account for the
indigenous semantic categories. We have to discover those using methods which
allow native speakers, unbiased by outside educational systems, to try to
express how they divide up the lexical universe. Dick Watson's post is one good
methodology for getting at those emic semantic taxonomies.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>BTW, Ron recognizes, as he has stated in his most recent
message and he and I have had email exchanges on this point in the past, that
the DDP program is a good start. I'd stay it's far better than good. It
represents a great deal of careful thinking by someone who has done a lot of
lexical work with speakers in workshops in different parts of the world. It
simply has the limitations that any "external" program will have for displaying
semantic domains of any particular language.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Yes, there are semantic universals. I don't know how many
universals there are re: semantic taxonomies. It may be that there are
universals, but that we have to describe them using dependency relationships or
something like that, such as is done by some people working with language
typologies today (e.g. If a clause of a language has an Object, that Object will
usually appear in such-and-such a position relative to the Verb).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Ultimately, we need to do a lot more work on ethnosemantics
based on culturally-sensitive cognitive science. After all, lexical
relationships presumably represent relationships among mental concepts of people
who have various worldviews and artifacts within their worlds.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>So, in summary, Greg, I understand what you are saying. I
could even accept, hmm, perhaps (!), the validity of some lexical data of some
language published for English speakers using semantic domains that English
speakers use. But the publication should make it very, very clear that those
semantic domains are only there as a helpful device for English speakers to
access information about semantic domains they are curious about. They need to
understand that if they consider a palm to be a tree and find a palm in the tree
category (even if the language does not have a generic word for tree), that does
not mean that the palm is a tree in the lexicon that they are viewing in
publication. My own preference would be to limit the misunderstanding that can
result from squeezing round and other shaped and colored objects into square
holes. I've seen this done terribly with "dictionaries" published recently for a
variety of language by a man (<SPAN class=ptBrand><FONT size=3>Philip M. Parker;
googling on his name is an interesting exercise if one is interested in how not
to do lexicography) </FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=binding></SPAN>who squeezed the
words of every language (none of which he knew and so there were many errors)
into an English thesaurus model. Several of us linguists have had to
contact him and try to help him understand how distorted and inaccurate his
books are. And they have even been demeaning to the native speakers of
languages, as for instance, if he would force a vernacular word for "weed" into
the thesaurus category for mind-altering substances. That very kind of thing
happened for one Native American language and those people were highly offended
by their language was misrepresented.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Wayne</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Hi Wayne,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I am sorry if my reply seems inane, but one
purpose of a semantic taxonomy is to produce a list of words grouped by
semantic domain, to help find similar words. If the reader wants to explore
the plant names of a vernacular, it is useful to have the plant names grouped
in a list, and to have the list divided into various
sub-groupings.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Having read the LDL today, it seems there are at
least three possible ways of ordering the semantic domain list. (1) There may
be a universal order, which would reflect a kind of average of individual
ethno-taxonomic systems. This has the advantage of being intuitive and easily
used by everyone. (2) You could use an English ethno-taxonomy, which has
the benefit of being intuitive and easily used by an English reader. (3) You
could use the ethno-taxonomy of the vernacular language, which has the
advantage of being a insightful window on the vernacular language and thought
system, but the disadvantage of possibly being obscure to an outsider. I was
wondering which of the three options the DDP taxonomy was aiming at, and
whether the DDP taxonomy needs to be tweaked for each language, or
deliberately kept unchanged.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I have just learned that in the Austronesian
language I work with, coconut palms, sago palms, pandanus trees and
betelnut palms are all not considered 'trees'. There is no superordinate term
to refer to them, as you rightly suggested might be the case.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Regards, Greg</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid" dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4"><B>From:</B> <A
title=wayne_leman@sil.org href="mailto:wayne_leman@sil.org">Wayne Leman</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com
href="mailto:lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com">lexicographylist@<WBR>yahoogroups.<WBR>com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, May 20, 2009 2:09
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Lexicog] palm trees</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV id=ygrp-text>
<P>Greg, if you are attempting to reflect the lexicon of a language, what
is<BR>the purpose of using a semantic taxonomy that does not reflect the
lexical<BR>relationships of that language?<BR><BR>It seems to me that using
an "external" taxonomy to aid English readers<BR>creates a distorted view of
the lexical relations within the language, which<BR>includes taxonomic
relationships.<BR><BR>By the way, it is not necessary to have superordinate
category<BR>classification words in order for a people to have the concept
of a semantic<BR>grouping, although it definitely helps. Not every concept
that people have<BR>is lexicalized, including in
English.<BR><BR>Wayne<BR>-----<BR>Ninilchik Russian dictionary online:<BR><A
href="http://ninilchik.noadsfree.com">http://ninilchik.<WBR>noadsfree.<WBR>com</A><BR><BR>--------<BR><BR>Hi
Ron,<BR><BR>I was not thinking of using a vernacular classification because
the<BR>vernacular I am studying actually seems to have few classification
words of<BR>levels that I can find. Also, I want my semantic domain list to
reflect a<BR>likely folk classification of English readers because it will
mostly be<BR>English readers who access the (English) sematic domain list. I
know you do<BR>not want an English folk classification.
Sorry.<BR><BR><snip><BR><BR>Regards, Greg<BR><BR></P></DIV><!--End group email --></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P></P></DIV><!--End group email -->
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