Re: New Conlanger

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 15/05/99 13:46:43  , Josh a =E9crit :

<<  there is no way to "logically" name all
 the semantic words you need without producing ridiculously long words.
 Please give me the logical name for a pizza.  You might think of one, for
 instance "round-piece-of-food-with-cheese" but this isn't really satisfacto=
ry
 as chances are whatever shortish name you choose will describe a number of
 other things just as well (in this case, er... a cheesecake, among other=20
things
 I'm sure).  Logical languages are about unambiguity in the *interrelation*
 of things, and of course your definitions must be clear as well.
=20
 Josh >>

Bob, as an illustration of what Joshua says, you may want to read some pages=20
about "universal" languages claimed by their authors to name things in a=20
perfect way like Ro, for instance.

I had no linguistic knowledge when I started conlanging and nobody could=20
explain things to me so I was very ennoyed. I know that getting pieces of=20
advice from conlangers can save you a lot of time, although you should keep=20
in mind that your conlang is only yours and that nobody here will ever judge=20
it. I'm not very knowledgeable in that stuff and I vocabulary and ideas abou=
t=20
it may look very simplistic to you. However, these few lines may help you=20
pick and check again certain issues. I still post it on the list so that=20
others can correct me or make things clearer.

"Semantic" just refers to the meaning "contained" in a word, like the=20
definition of that word in a dictionary.This is always an "imperfect"=20
definition, because a perfect definition of "pizza" is something like "pizza=20
is what no other word is" ;-) The more you try to be accurate in your=20
definition of a concept ("word"), the more you say what that word is not. So=20
in the end you would say "it is what all other words I know are not". The=20
dictionary defines a word according to its main field of experience, usually=20
the function of the item when there is one, then the "physical" or=20
"intellectual" description, the result of its use, etc. For instance "pizza"=20
would be defined in the field of "food" (function), "made of dough"=20
(description), "baked", etc. (not "sport" or "politics").  "Cow" may be=20
defined in the field of "animal" (description), but also "cattle" (function)=
.

Some "parts of words" are specialized in adding or pointing a specific=20
meaning to a word, like your "big", "medium" or "small" tags do. But when yo=
u=20
say "big-animal", do you mean an animal that is big compared to other kinds=20
of animals ? or bigger than the average of this kind of animals ("giant cow"=
)=20
? etc.

In "logical" languages you need sometime to think to which part of the=20
semantic definition of your word these little parts of words attach. A "room=
"=20
is not simply a "part of house", except if you define a house as a "body of=20
rooms" ;-).
Of course this is not the case in natural languages. For instance in Guayaki=20
"horse" is just "puran-bw=E9" : "the yummy one", jaguar is "the Death", "ka"=20
means "forest, night, shadow", etc. Look at other artlangs and you'll also=20
see "compound words" : you merge two words together and you give that new=20
word a specific meaning. There are also "derived words" that you build from =
a=20
verb (play-er) or nouns (pian-ist).

"Syntactic" : refers to the "interrelations" between the words, like between=20
"I" and "eat" and "beef" in "I eat beef". That relation may be shown by a=20
specific kind of words or part of words, like your "bob" in "bobLAL" shows=20
the verb of the sentence.=20

So "words" or "parts of words" have a syntactic or a semantic meaning. Or=20
both : Your "bob" apparently shows at the same time an aspect, a tense=20
(semantic meaning) and the verb (syntactic role).

Quite apart from that, you may have noticed that some sentences do not make=20
sense although the relations between the words (the syntactic tags) are OK.=20
In "the door barks", the words are put in the right order, -s of "barks" is=20
OK, but still, something is wrong. This is because the respective semantic=20
definitions of "dog" and "to bark" do not match very well in that specific=20
syntactic relation " dog=3Dsubject + bark=3Dverb ". Maybe in some other lang=
uage=20
"to bark" also means "to creak", but not in English.

That's why people working on automatic translation try to list most sensible=20
matches between all possible words in both source and target languages. It's=20
100 times more entries than in dictionaries.

Mathias