[Corpora-List] describing languages as [link]-[sem]-[morphsyn]tripplets...

[Califf, Mary Elaine]

"We" certainly doesn't seem to me to be a primitive.  Consider
Malay/Indonesian, where two distinct words ("kami" and "kita") are used
for two different meanings of English "we."  Interestingly enough, a
generic word for you with no additional limitations/connotations
("anda") was added to the language top-down because there really wasn't
a word in the language that meant just "you."

 

Mary Elaine Califf, PhD

Acting Director

School of Information Technology

Illinois State University

mecalif at ilstu.edu

 

From: corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf
Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 5:19 PM
To: 'John F. Sowa'
Cc: 'David Eddy'; corpora at uib.no
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] describing languages as
[link]-[sem]-[morphsyn]tripplets...

 

Hi John,

 

Thanks for the so typically excellent material so typical of you!

 

You wrote:

 

I believe there are no primitives that are truly primitive

in the sense that they cannot be analyzed in different ways

by different adults with different biases.

 

John

 

How would you otherwise account for the concept of I? You?  We?
HeSheIt?

 

Still convinced on SOME primitives,

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2

 

-----Original Message-----
From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa at bestweb.net] 
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 3:02 PM
To: Rich Cooper
Cc: corpora at uib.no; 'David Eddy'
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] describing languages as
[link]-[sem]-[morphsyn] tripplets...

 

On 1/9/2011 3:05 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:

> is there somewhere I can find [Masterman's] 100 concept types

> and the 15,000 entries?

 

Following is a review I wrote of a volume of Margaret Masterman's

collected papers, edited by Yorick Wilks:

 

    http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/mmb_rev.htm

    Review of _Language, Cohesion and Form_

 

You can buy the paperback from Amazon for $24.90, or you can browse

the Google books version for free.

 

Yorick adopted Masterman's primitives as a basis for his early

version of preference semantics.  Following is a paper he wrote

on that topic in 1975:

 

    http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/T/T75/T75-2009.pdf

    Primitives and Words

 

But that is over 35 years old.  Following is a list of his

more recent publications:

 

    http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/Y.Wilks/papers.html

 

> The requirement for proper interpretation is that each of the

> N words be defined in terms of some others, or said word be

> individually interpretable, in a way that fits the quirks

> and angles of the English language as used by a young person,

> with little world knowledge other than what has been directly

> experienced.

 

Children don't start with primitives.  They start with complex

concepts like Mommy, doggie, cookie, and gimme.  The so-called

primitives are the result of analysis by adults who have learned

how to write dissertations about language.

 

I believe there are no primitives that are truly primitive

in the sense that they cannot be analyzed in different ways

by different adults with different biases.

 

John

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