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

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, And Rosta <a.rosta@L...> wrote:
> Differences between things, such as carrots and potatoes, need to
> be reflected in wordshape by phonological differences that reflect
> the unconfusability of carrots and potatoes. But at the same time,
> there are reasons for wanting to have words with similar or related
> meaning have similar or related sound. One reason is that an iconic
> map of conceptual space is a better (more faithful) map. Another
Can you demonstate that, in real-world usage by a broad population,
this model is necessarily "better" than the means used by natural
languages--taking into account Wittgenstein II's conclusions regarding
epistemology and language, of course?


> reason is that the iconicity makes the language easier to learn.
Natural languages seem to be sufficiently easy to learn.  All three of
my children have learned/are learning two--English at home and
Spanglish at school for the older two and English and ASL for the
youngest (no, he's not hearing-impaired, he picks it up from some
other kids at his daycare).


> in sets like {north, south}, {east, west}, {female, male}, {dog,
> hog, frog, polliwog (tadpole)}.
And what about right/wrong, good/bad, boy/girl, pig/horse/cow/chicken?
   My youngest isn't even two years old and he recognizes boy/girl,
pig/horse/cow/chicken.  Your claim of ease may be true, but it also
appears to be irrelevant.


> * Words with similar/related meanings should in shape be half
> similar and half different. But the different half may be similar

> to other words related in a different way. For example, the
> shape of the word for carrot might have a tubery component in
> common with the word for potato, and an orangey component in
Ah, but carrots are not tubers!  Carrot should have a "rooty"
component.  It should also have a "nightshady" component.  Likewise,
it should have a "grows in temperate climates component".  It should
also have a "requires loose soil" and "annual plant" component.
Eventually, we have a word with so many necessary components that it
becomes simply unwieldy.  Oh, but wait, more components:  It should
have appropriate culinary components, too!

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