Re: building from primitives (was Re: Language Contest)

Yes, in a semantic prime language you can create words on the fly and
this may be the perscriptive preferred method, but often the
*congative burden is so great* to do this, that people will begin to
resort to "idioms" "compound words" "lexicalized word phrases" which
will in the long run be easier to memorize as single bit of meaning
then to build words on the fly or attempt to parse someone's attempt
to build such a word out of semantic primes.  This is a practical
weakness of semantic primes languauges.  That said, I still think
letting language users be able to build words out of semantic primes
is a good thing and should be a feature of any conlang that hopes to
attract a handful of users.

On Nov 30, 2007 1:46 PM,  <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
> In a message dated 11/30/2007 11:32:55 AM Central Standard Time,
> joerg_rhiemeier@WEB.DE writes:
>
>
> > Sure, by most definitions TP indeed has only 118 words - but it has
> > lexicalized idiomatic phrases such as _nena mama_ 'women's breasts'
> > (lit. 'parent bump') or _toki pona_ (lit. 'speak good').  We are
> > getting into the thorny ground how to define a "word" here.
> >
>
> While _nena mama_  *can* mean "woman's breasts" and _toki pona_ *can* mean
> Toki Pona, they both still have their literal meanings, which are so broad that
> the specific English meanings can be/have been attached to them.  Anything
> that can be described as 'parent bump' or 'good speak' is appropriately called
> _nena mama_ or _toki pona_, resp.  The literal meanings of the individual words
> are being used.  There is no lexicalization of phrases.  The only
> 'lexicalization' is in how to translate them into English, and that's largely determined
> by context.
>
> stevo   </HTML>
>