In defence of philosophical languages (was: RE: Comparison of ph

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, And Rosta <a.rosta@L...> wrote:
> Bryan Maloney:
> > Ah, but carrots are not tubers!  Carrot should have a "rooty"
> > component.
>
> Okay, though tubery would do for me, since to me tubers and root
> vegetables are the same.
Please demonstrate that your personal semantic prejudices are
necessarily universal.


> Why? Its oranginess and rootiness are its most salient properties.
Please demonstrate that your personal semantic prejudices are
necessarily universal.


> We're trying to map conceptual space here, not objective reality.
> The idea is not that the wordshape should give you the equivalent
> of an encyclopedia article on carrots. The idea is that the
No, "we" are not.  You are trying to do hard-core advocacy of the
"superiority" of your language concepts over natural language.  Take
it to Auxlang, where that sort of talk belongs.  If you want to talk
about the technical issues of constructing a language, then this is a
fine place for it, but evangelizing a language is for Auxlang.

Gah!  I feel like I'm corresponding with Pierre Savoie about Esperanto!

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