Re: Langauge Constets (was Natural Semantic Metalanguage)

--- Geoff Horswood <geoffhorswood@...> wrote:

> --- Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Perhaps instead of each word adding more meaning to
> > the sentence, each wourd
> > could subtract meaning from the sentence. Use words
> > so broad as to be
> > essentially meaningless, but when combined with
> > other words take the meaning(s)
> > _shared_ by the two words.
> >
> > For example, "glundi" means "large, blue, glowing,
> > animal", and "finja" means
> > "red, glowing, automobile, animal", and "wagnus"
> > means "tree, horse, broken,
> > cloud". So it's clear that "glundi finja wagnus" can
> > only mean "horse".
>
>  Unless it means "large broken automobile" or "glowing
> cloud", both of which I can think of a context for.
>
> Geoff
Perhaps I didn't explain it very well. The meaning is the _intersection_ of the
definitions. A phrase means ONLY what ALL the words have in COMMON:

"glundi" and "finja" have only "glowing" and "animal" in common so all other
meanings are disarded.
Then (glundi+finja) and "wagnus" have "animal" vs "horse" as their only point
of intersection. All other meanings are not possible.

--gary