Re: baselines and semantics

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!UCL.AC.UK!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!ucleaar>]

Lojbab:
> Furthermore, I'll claim that NO ONE has the competence to define a
> prescriptive semantics, because there is no unambiguous mode of
> expression to communicate semantics.  Hence we can only through
> induction come up with a model of semantics.  I believe that that model,
> if created, would differ for every human being, since semantics is a
> function of personal idiolect, not of a language as a whole.
>
> (Translated to English, that means "words mean what I want them to mean"
> with "I" moving with each new speaker of the phrase.)

These are strong claims that cover natural language, not just artificial
languages.
(1) I don't know what is meant by "unambiguous mode of expression
to communicate semantics".
(2) Research in semantics, as in syntax and chemistry, requires a certain
amount of induction. When inventing a language, though, one makes it up
- hopefully with an eye to what goes on in natural language.
(3) Re. Humptydumtyism: our success in communicating with each other
is solid evidence that there is a consensus about the meanings of words.

> >This vacuum where much of the semantics would be in a natural language
> >undermines the merits of the prescriptiveness of the rest of the grammar.
>
> The merits of prescriptiveness in Lojban phonology and grammar is that
> the language is unambiguous in those areas.  I don't believe a
> completely unambiguous semantics is possible, and I don't believe that
> most Lojbanists want it - hence the ever-recurring concern with the
> ability to joke, write poetry, or express metonymy in the language.

Prescriptiveness and ambiguity are not mutually exclusive. The semantics
will inevitably involve a certain degree of vagueness (which I take to
be equivalent to ambiguity in your usage). My point was that the (lexical)
semantics could be much less vague than it is. Specifically, it could
be stated what the prototypical instance of each category is, and what
its particularly salient features are.

For example, is a _mruli_ ('hammer, weighted stick tool used for unspecified
purpose') typically used for hitting? If one uses a weighted stick tool
for some other purpose, e.g. raking leaves, is it a _mruli_ or should
some other word be sought? Could one call an instrument used for
hitting a _mruli_ even if it isn't a weighted stick, or should one
seek another word to avoid being misunderstood. Is a bottle more of
a botpi than a cup? A bowl? A chalice? An amphora?

Sufficient usage might indeed resolve these questions, but it could
take a lot of usage, and also a lot of research to discover what
senses usage has fixed on. Set against this, the labour of *stipulating*
the prototype for each gismu actually seems *less* than the labour eventually
involved if we wait for usage to decide matters.

My Lojban compositions were parasitic on the lexical semantics of the
English keywords given in the Lojban gismu lists. Imagine someone
without a good command of English composing in Lojban using a gismu
list with keywords in their native language (preferably something non-
European). To what extent would we be able to understand each other?
Not so well, I hazard.

---
And