Re: Concept_sitting

Veoler wrote:
> love (v) = 'like' + 'very (much)'
>
> would be my suggestion.
>
That doesn't work for me at all. Sure, it makes it a darn sight easier
to love my neighbor if I happen to like him/her; but I will still try to
love him/her even if I don't particularly like him/her. To me 'love' and
'like' are quite distinct concepts.
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David J. Peterson wrote:
 > The task you're doing can be done to any concept pretty much
 > however you see fit.  If "rain" is "sky + water", perhaps "sky" is
 > "up + air".

True - the splitting could in fact go on ad_infinitum. We could
certainly split 'air' and, I guess, if one wanted to, it wouldn't be too
difficult to split 'up'. 'water', of course, can be readily split.

 >All of this, however, will depend upon the frame of
 > mind one is examining the lexicon from (as well as the lexicon
 > itself).  There is no "split" that will be true for all people or all
 > languages.

Exactly - not even for all speakers of the same language.

 > What's this for?  Why does "love" need to be split up?  Here are
 > some possible splits for love:
 >
 > desire + empathy
 > desire + care
 > eros + jealousy
 > fear + compassion
 >
 > I can come up with an argument for pretty much anything.  (Not
 > that I agree with any of them.)
 >

Quite so - nor do I agree with any of them.  By splitting 'love' in any
way you want one is, in fact, restricting its meaning in a fairly
arbitrary and certainly personal way. Nor is one significantly reducing
ambiguity as the two elements into which 'love' is split still have wide
ranges of meaning.

Personally, I don't see how such splitting can ever be culturally
neutral. Also I wager that any such splitting will produce some results
at least that will seem very odd to people into, say, two or three
generations time.

The search for the so-called 'semantic primes' is not trivial. That is
not to say a person should not try it - but they must realize (a) it is
not a trivial exercise and (b) the result will almost certainly not be
culturally neutral.

Ray
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CENEDL HEB IAITH, CENEDL HEB GALON.
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