Re: Numbers and math

On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> H. S. Teoh wrote:
>
> >Alas??? I find math to be very enlightening in learning different ways to
> >think about things. I especially appreciate the courses I took on number
> >theory and set theory.
>
> Try set theory in relation to linguistics.  Or constructing lattices based
> on everyday sentences.  Ie, mathematical proof that "The dog is running
> fast" implies that a) there is a dog, b) there is a running, c) the dog is
> running, etc.    That class hurt my poor head.
!

Set theory isn't my strength; I'm assiduously avoiding the semester class
in Zermelo-Fraenkel (I hope I spelled that right) set theory.

> Just a sample form my text:
>
> "In general, (both)...and... and (either)...or... combine expressions of
> d,d' in a lattice category C, and [(both) d and d'] denotes the greatest
[snip]
> This is why mathematicians can do well in linguistics.
(ruefully)  I don't know about linguistics, but I'm *much* better at
language-learning (writing, foreign language, whatever) than at math.
German has yet to give me a headache (I was freaked out when I first saw
separable verbs, but I got used to them, and you know what?  the
bracketing sort of structure they induce is kinda pretty).  French rarely
did.  Math, OTOH...

Sometime I'll post 1-100 in Chevraqis....

What would be *really* fun to encode in a conlang in terms of
conjunctions/conditionals (and, but, if...?  I'm never sure if I have the
right terminology), would be fuzzy logic, a.k.a multivalent logic (and
yes, it's an area of math, and no, it isn't *that* fuzzy).  So you could
have ways to express (A and not-A) without being inconsistent, because
you have the in-between shades.  I only wish I knew more about the field;
I'm probably going to stick to more tame conjunctions/conditionals for
Chevraqis, like XOR and OR and so on.

YHL