Re: Concept_sitting

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:22:58 -0800, Sai Emrys <saizai@...> wrote:

>Gödel, for example, proved that any (mathematical) system necessarily
>has certain axioms that cannot be proved within that system. They must
>simply be accepted, or not; if one does not accept them, then no
>fruitful discussion can be had - they're not things one can argue to
>be correct without going into a homunculus fallacy.
Oi, that's not what Goedel said.  He was talking about unprovable truths,
sure, but already given a consistent formal theory which includes axioms.
Axiomatisation has been an accepted practice in rigorous mathematics since
the Greeks; that's one of the things that let Euclid's Elements remain a
standard text for two millennia.  And if something's an axiom, then by
definition it's provable; it's its own proof, basically.

The analogy still goes through to my eye if you just talk about
axiomatisation; Goedel IIRC is a red herring.

</nitpick>

>So yes, you can create a language based on semantic "primes". Indeed,
>I think it's a useful idea; it gives rise to elegance like Arabic's
>triconsontal semantic roots.
But that's just productive derivational morphology (well, inflectional too),
and having derivational morphology is a goal much more in reach than
well-functioning oligosynthesis.

Alex

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