Lojban In General

Posted by stevo on Thu 03 of Dec, 2009 12:13 GMT posts: 381

In a message dated 8/27/2009 14:50:04 Eastern Daylight Time,
adam.raizen@gmail.com writes:

> How does limiting the semantic primitives used in definitions even have a
> connection to the problem of definitions not being able to capture all the
> details of usage of real words in real languages. Have I completely
> misunderstood what NSM is?
>

One of the aims of NSM (and a minor one, I think) is to find the semantic
primitives of language(s).
The main aim is to use those primitives in defining non-primitive terms.
This is done with "explications", or scenario-like quasi-definitions that
give much more information about the real meaning of a word than standard
definitions do. These explications also allow comparison of different words, in
particular, synonyms, to see precisely in what way the words' meanings are
different.

stevo