https://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&feed=atom&action=historysemantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory - Revision history2024-03-28T08:36:39ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.38.4https://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&diff=102450&oldid=prevConversion script: Conversion script moved page Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory to semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory: Converting page titles to lowercase2014-06-30T09:09:54Z<p>Conversion script moved page <a href="/papri/Semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory" class="mw-redirect" title="Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory">Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory</a> to <a href="/papri/semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory" title="semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory">semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory</a>: Converting page titles to lowercase</p>
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<td colspan="1" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 09:09, 30 June 2014</td>
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</td></tr></table>Conversion scripthttps://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&diff=81806&oldid=prevGleki at 11:51, 1 January 20142014-01-01T11:51:54Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>Originally placed at http://www.lojban.org/files/papers/nsn_semantics_paper</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">{{jbocre/en}}</ins>Originally placed at http://www.lojban.org/files/papers/nsn_semantics_paper</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><center>by [[nitcion|Nick Nicholas]].</center></div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><center>by [[nitcion|Nick Nicholas]].</center></div></td></tr>
</table>Glekihttps://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&diff=81805&oldid=prevGleki at 11:50, 1 January 20142014-01-01T11:50:41Z<p></p>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>unspecified relationship between the head and the modifier.</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>unspecified relationship between the head and the modifier.</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>tanru are the basis of compound words in Lojban. However, a compound</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">'''</ins>tanru<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">''' </ins>are the basis of compound words in Lojban. However, a compound</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>word has a single defined meaning whereas the meaning of a tanru is</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>word has a single defined meaning whereas the meaning of a tanru is</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>explicitly ambiguous, Lojban tanru are not as free as English figures</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>explicitly ambiguous, Lojban tanru are not as free as English figures</div></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>defined as:</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>defined as:</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>:''x1 is a bottle/jar/urn/flask/closable container for x2, made of</div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>:''x1 is a bottle/jar/urn/flask/closable container for x2, made of material x3 with lid x4''</div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>material x3 with lid x4''</div></td><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-added"></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>and, in veridical use of the predicate, the presence of all arguments</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>and, in veridical use of the predicate, the presence of all arguments</div></td></tr>
</table>Glekihttps://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&diff=81803&oldid=prevGleki at 11:49, 1 January 20142014-01-01T11:49:53Z<p></p>
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<td colspan="2" style="background-color: #fff; color: #202122; text-align: center;">Revision as of 11:49, 1 January 2014</td>
</tr><tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-lineno" id="mw-diff-left-l1">Line 1:</td>
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<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">==Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory</del>.<del style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">==</del></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Originally placed at http://www</ins>.<ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">lojban.org/files/papers/nsn_semantics_paper</ins></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="−"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #ffe49c; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><center>[[nitcion|Nick Nicholas]].</center></div></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div> </div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" class="diff-side-deleted"></td><td class="diff-marker" data-marker="+"></td><td style="color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #a3d3ff; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div><center><ins style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">by </ins>[[nitcion|Nick Nicholas]].</center></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br/></td></tr>
<tr><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>In this essay, I consider semantic issues in the formulation of a</div></td><td class="diff-marker"></td><td style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-size: 88%; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 1px 1px 4px; border-radius: 0.33em; border-color: #eaecf0; vertical-align: top; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div>In this essay, I consider semantic issues in the formulation of a</div></td></tr>
</table>Glekihttps://mw-live.lojban.org/index.php?title=semantic_issues_in_a_prescriptive_word_composition_theory&diff=81801&oldid=prevGleki: Created page with "==Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory.== <center>Nick Nicholas.</center> In this essay, I consider semantic issues in the formulation of a p..."2014-01-01T11:48:52Z<p>Created page with "==Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory.== <center><a href="/papri/nitcion" class="mw-redirect" title="nitcion">Nick Nicholas</a>.</center> In this essay, I consider semantic issues in the formulation of a p..."</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>==Semantic issues in a prescriptive word composition theory.==<br />
<center>[[nitcion|Nick Nicholas]].</center><br />
<br />
In this essay, I consider semantic issues in the formulation of a<br />
prescriptive theory for word compound meaning, and to what extent they<br />
run counter to prescription.<br />
<br />
The language in which the formulation has occured is Lojban. Lojban is<br />
an artificial language, the offshoot of an earlier project, Loglan<br />
(Brown 1960). The declared aim of the Loglan project was to test the<br />
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on a language based on symbolic logic. Lojban<br />
supporters are motivated by a more diffuse range of reasons, amongst<br />
which apparently a desire for unambiguous communication. The language<br />
has been under development for the past five years, and is nearing<br />
publication.<br />
<br />
The main unambiguities claimed for the language (Cowan 1991) are<br />
phonological-graphical, morphological, and syntactic;<br />
<br />
"The claim for semantic unambiguity is a limited one only. Lojban<br />
contains several constructs which are explicitly ambiguous<br />
semantically. The most ambiguous of these are Lojban tanru (so-called<br />
'metaphors') and Lojban names. [...] tanru are binary combinations of<br />
predicates, such that the second predicate is the 'head' and the first<br />
predicate is a modifier for that head. The meaning of the tanru is the<br />
meaning of its head, with the additional information that there is some<br />
unspecified relationship between the head and the modifier.<br />
<br />
tanru are the basis of compound words in Lojban. However, a compound<br />
word has a single defined meaning whereas the meaning of a tanru is<br />
explicitly ambiguous, Lojban tanru are not as free as English figures<br />
of speech; they are 'analytic', meaning that the components of tanru do<br />
not themselves assume a figurative sense. Only the connection between<br />
them is unstated." (Cowan 1991:22)<br />
<br />
The above can be taken as a kind of manifesto of Lojban attitude to<br />
compounding. The components, the morphologically primitive predicates<br />
(gismu), are held to have an 'unambiguous' meaning by virtue of the<br />
relationship they posit between their arguments. Thus botpi 'bottle' is<br />
defined as:<br />
<br />
:''x1 is a bottle/jar/urn/flask/closable container for x2, made of<br />
material x3 with lid x4''<br />
<br />
and, in veridical use of the predicate, the presence of all arguments<br />
is entailed. If one asserts that X is a bottle, it is entailed that it<br />
is a bottle of something, with some lid. If it lacks either, it is not<br />
a botpi, and cannot be called lo botpi (it can be called le botpi,<br />
where le is the nonveridical determiner, corresponding somewhat to a<br />
definite article: "that which I describe as a bottle".)<br />
<br />
This attitude to sense clearly predates any awareness of prototype<br />
semantics, and the insistence on positing necessary conditions for<br />
sense may prove unworkable. If so, language users will presumably use<br />
the words as they are and ignore the entailments. The language definers<br />
have belatedly recognised this by introducing the particle zi'o to<br />
'undefine' a predicate argument, but this will probably not be enough.<br />
<br />
Notwithstanding the problems inherent to 'unambiguous' base predicates,<br />
it is the manner in which they combine I wish to deal with. As we saw,<br />
head and modifier are considered unambiguous, but the manner in which<br />
they are related is not. Thus gerku zdani, "dog house", is as ambiguous<br />
as it is in English, and can have a variety of denotations: a house<br />
housing dogs, a house that is also a dog, a dog-shaped house, a house<br />
owned by dogs, etc. But once a compound word is formed based on this<br />
pair, like gerzda, "doghouse", it is supposed to entail only one of<br />
these possible head-modifier relations, and to have a 'unique'<br />
meaning.<br />
<br />
While talk of unambiguous meanings seems a chimera, the claims being<br />
made are not impractical, when properly reinterpreted. The predicate<br />
definitions constrain their senses; in a tanru, the different ways the<br />
head can relate to the modifier expand the resulting sense; fixing a<br />
single relationship constrains sense sufficiently for there to be a<br />
single well-defined set of predicate arguments, without implying that<br />
there is a single sense or even a single denotation to the resulting<br />
compound.<br />
<br />
The Lojbanic propensity for disambiguation has manifested itself in the<br />
formulation of rules, according to which the compound predicate can be<br />
derived from the component predicates. Though this venture was<br />
discouraged by the chief language engineer as premature, some<br />
preliminary guidelines were outlined by Jim Carter, and formalised by<br />
myself (Nicholas 1993). Further language usage, and considerable debate<br />
on the issue, have shown that, while these guidelines are useful in<br />
deriving compound predicates and augmenting Lojban vocabulary, there<br />
are many semantic provisos to be borne in mind while using them. I will<br />
list the main such problems below.<br />
<br />
It is worth mentioning that a similar attempt to formalise word<br />
compound meaning has occured in a more well-known artificial language,<br />
Esperanto. (see Schubert (1993)). To what extent has actual language<br />
usage conformed to the prescriptive ideal, and were there any major<br />
gaps in the prescriptive model that usage has had to work its way<br />
around?<br />
<br />
The prescribed rules (based on descriptive analysis of a corpus, to a<br />
much greater extent than the analogous work in Lojban) have encouraged<br />
productive use of word forms not used in the early language, most<br />
notably in the elision (where the rules allow it) of the suffix -ec-,<br />
"-ness". Thus laboremeco is already considered an archaism for<br />
laboremo, "industriousness", and compounds like rugxo are gaining<br />
ground over compounds like rugxeco ("redness"). Arguably the community<br />
has picked up and creatively exploited these rules. This does not mean<br />
that they are universally adhered to.<br />
<br />
The first reason why is calques. For example, according to the rules,<br />
korekta means not "correct" but "corrective". Schubert claims that "for<br />
speakers not yet too familiar with the inherent regularity of<br />
Esperanto, the temptation is strong to use korekta as the English<br />
adjective correct or its French, German, etc., equivalents." (Schubert<br />
1993:329), and the Full Illustrated Dictionary of Esperanto lists this<br />
sense of korekta as evitinda (to be avoided). Though it runs against<br />
the prescriptive norm, however, the use of korekta in this sense is so<br />
prevalent, it would be irresponsible for a descriptive account of the<br />
language not to list it as its primary meaning. This, I think, has two<br />
lessons for Lojbanists: firstly, languages are not closed systems<br />
(though by virtue of its morphology and philosophy Lojban will probably<br />
be more closed than Esperanto), and any internally generated account of<br />
the language is still subject to disruption from outside forces.<br />
Secondly, lexemes in speakers' native languages fulfil certain<br />
functional needs; if an artificial language community feels that need<br />
must be met, the word will be calqued across, no matter what the<br />
prescriptivists say. This has been the case for korekta, and I suspect<br />
it may often prove the case for Lojban speakers, given the<br />
inflexibility of the rules involved.<br />
<br />
The second reason is idiomatisation. Disregarding early calques like<br />
respondeca ("responsible"), this is most pertinent in Esperanto for<br />
compounds where meaning can no longer be compositionally accounted for.<br />
In some cases, the compound is a hyponym of the meaning obtained<br />
componentially. Thus a lernejo is not just a "place of learning", but<br />
specifically a school; "this meaning has been defined by convention.<br />
The full compositional meaning can be actualised when a speaker so<br />
wishes, but special means are needed for this." (Schubert 1993:354)<br />
(The reading obtained, I would add, would be highly marked.) Or, the<br />
compound may have a figurative sense, as in the old calque disvolvigxi<br />
"to unwind" for "to evolve". (Lojban, being used by a literal-minded,<br />
logicist community, has an abhorrence for such compounds.) These<br />
semantic shifts may also be amenable to a functionalist analysis, where<br />
the de facto readings are somehow more useful, as taxonomically more<br />
basic, than the prescribed readings of the compound. A pragmatics of<br />
word compounding in lexically productive languages --- what pragmatic<br />
circumstances motivate the coining of new lexemes as opposed to the<br />
continuing use of periphrases --- would yield some interesting results<br />
here. In any case, we can see that, again, if speakers feel they need<br />
an expression for a certain concept, or if connotations and the<br />
interaction of semantic fields are potent enough, then the meaning of a<br />
compound will shift from its original, componential sense; the metaphor<br />
underlying the compound will die. This process, some believe (Schubert<br />
quotes Ferdinand de Saussure's discussion of artificial languages in<br />
this light), is part of creolisation, and is inevitable when a language<br />
gains a wide enough speaker community.<br />
<br />
===Semantic problems===<br />
<br />
(see Appendix for the prescriptive rules discussed.)<br />
<br />
1. If the modifier describes an argument of the head, would a place for<br />
this argument in the compound predicate be redundant? For example,<br />
given that one says la monrePOS. zdani la spot. "Mon Repos houses<br />
Spot", does it make sense for gerzda "doghouse" to still have a<br />
thematic role for the entity housed (la monrePOS. gerzda la spot. "Mon<br />
Repos dog-houses Spot")? There are intuitive reasons to say no: he is<br />
the (*van) driver of a van would indicate a straighforward equivalence<br />
between modifier and complement. Is this the case for "doghouse"<br />
though? The 'transformation' of the English compound to noun with<br />
complement is "house for dogs", where "dogs" is clearly a hypernym of<br />
"Spot". This difference in denotation indicates that "Mon Repos<br />
dog-houses Spot" is not conveying redundant information, in that the<br />
identity of the dog is unspecified by the compound.<br />
<br />
But if the proper meaning of "doghouse" is "house for dogs", shouldn't<br />
the denotation of the "dog" thematic role be that of a mass noun,<br />
rather than a proper name? And shouldn't the usage of gerzda with a<br />
specific dog be blocked (Aronoff 1976:43) by the use of zdani? (The<br />
former gives the identical relational information, merely imposing the<br />
selectional restriction that the entity housed be a dog.) In other<br />
words, is there any motivation for the predicate gerzda to mean "X is<br />
the doghouse of dog Y", when Y seems to be properly a mass noun, and<br />
when zdani is doing the same job? Opinion in the Lojban community is<br />
divided. The conclusion I arrived at in formulating the guidelines was<br />
that most of the time there was no such motivation, but what takes the<br />
place of Y, if anything, is unclear. If Y is also dogs, then it is<br />
redundant (*X is a doghouse for dogs); if it is a hyponym for dog,<br />
while still a mass noun, it might not be (X is a doghouse for St<br />
Bernards), though it can still be blocked by the analogous X houses St<br />
Bernards.<br />
<br />
2. The resulting compound argument order is counterintuitive. Typically<br />
the first argument in Lojban corresponds to the subject, and the second<br />
to the direct object. This doesn't work out when the compound is an<br />
action verb (agentive causative) and the base predicate is an<br />
instrumental state verb (using Fillmore's 1968 Case Grammar<br />
terminology: see Cook 1989:15) Thus vreji "X is a record of event Y in<br />
medium Z" has the causative veirgau "agent W makes X a record of event<br />
Y in medium Z", rather than the expected "agent W records Y in medium Z<br />
as X" ('X' is still the object, in case grammar terms). Similarly, the<br />
agentive of galfi "process X modifies Y into Z" is gafygau "agent W<br />
uses process X to modify Y into Z" rather than "W modifies Y into Z<br />
using process X". With an increasing number of base predicates being<br />
defined as state rather than action verbs (lacking an agent thematic<br />
role), this discrepancy is likely to cause confusion in usage, compared<br />
to non- instrumentals (cf. fengu "X is angry about Y" and fegygau "W<br />
makes X angry about Y", or glare "X is hot by standard Y" and glagau "W<br />
makes X hot (heats X) by standard Y".)<br />
<br />
3. The decision on which arguments should be eliminated as "irrelevant<br />
to the definition" is arbitrary and non-compositional, and has drawn<br />
criticism as an indirect means of calquing: by positing such<br />
"irrelevancies", users are said to be matching word meaning to an<br />
extraneous (English) model. An example of this is laurba'u for "to<br />
bellow"; the decision to semantically restrict "loud utter" to "bellow"<br />
is externally motivated. While this is a valid criticism, in the light<br />
of Esperanto's experience with calques, and the impoverishment of<br />
Lojban's native resources, I think such coinages are inevitable.<br />
Unfortunately, they will foreseeably also cause much confusion. For<br />
example, in considering the arguments for posydji "to want something"<br />
(ponse djica "own want"), I have discarded as irrelevant the argument<br />
of ponse denoting law of ownership, while John Cowan has discarded the<br />
argument of djica denoting motive for desire. Leaving all such<br />
arguments in is unworkable, since the compound's arguments would<br />
proliferate unmanagably; but setting rules for which arguments to leave<br />
out seem to me implausible.<br />
<br />
4. The decision on which arguments to eliminate as redundant is also<br />
somewhat arbitrary: it is a matter of deciding which thematic roles<br />
should be coindexed. For posydji, the subject of wanting needn't be<br />
coindexed with the subject of owning. It would be possible for the<br />
predicate to have the form "X wants for Y to own Z", rather than "X<br />
wants to own Z". A case could be made, however, based on some notion of<br />
iconicity, that a shorter expression like the compound should express a<br />
simpler or more frequent concept (by Zipfean metrics) The sentential<br />
paraphrase can then be reserved for the more general concept, with more<br />
frame roles. An analogy could be made with the English constructs She<br />
wants to own it (for She wants herself to own it) versus She wants him<br />
to own it. This would mean that as much coindexing as possible would be<br />
encouraged between component predicate arguments.<br />
<br />
5. There is a concern (pointed out by Mark Shoulson) that language<br />
users are unnecessarily coining compounds to match the semantic map of<br />
English, when a language as lexically restricted as Lojban (about 1350<br />
morphologically primitive stems) should be content with a less finely<br />
divided semantic taxonomy of the world. For example, Shoulson has<br />
criticised my coining of djabeipre "waiter" (cidja bevri prenu "food<br />
carry person"), arguing that in most contexts the stem bevri "carrier"<br />
is sufficient. While this is a perceptive observation, native semantic<br />
maps tend to be firmly entrenched in speakers' minds. Esperanto<br />
borrowed its own maps from German and Russian (Waringhien 1959), and<br />
consolidated them with a large corpus of writing. Lojban can avail<br />
itself of neither kind of resource. It remains to be seen to what<br />
extent Lojban can find, let alone enforce, a native semantic map,<br />
founded on its morphological primitives.<br />
<br />
6. Because of the analytic nature of some of Lojban's predicates, there<br />
is frequently free choice as to which compound component is the head,<br />
and which the modifier. For example, in they killed each other,<br />
"killed" would be taken as the head, and "each other" as a complement<br />
or modifier, whether it appeared as a noun phrase, a prefix, or an<br />
adverb. But Lojban predicate simxu "mutual" is so defined ("set of<br />
participants X are reciprocally involved in activity Y"), that it could<br />
be taken as the head. simcatra "kill each other" can be transformed to<br />
the phrase simxu lenu catra "are mutual in that they kill". This<br />
atypical free choice extends to several modifiers: milxe "mildly",<br />
carmi "intense", cmalu "small", mabla "derogative", and so on.<br />
<br />
In fact, it has become something of a shibboleth to note which element<br />
a speaker uses as the head in compounds. Most language users make the<br />
natural language modifier the modifier in their compounds, even if they<br />
are aware that a Lojban 'deep structure' analysis has it as the head. A<br />
minority though (most prominently Jorge Llambias and Jim Carter) do<br />
not. Thus the former has used kakymli "clear one's throat" instead of<br />
the expected mlikafke, from kafke milxe "cough mild, mild in coughing"<br />
rather than milxe kafke "mildly cough". The question here is what<br />
properly constitutes a head. Should the judgement be only syntactic/<br />
morphological (in which case kafke can be both head and modifier<br />
according to individual prefernce), or should it be semantically<br />
motivated? (Which raises the problem of which semantic metalanguage one<br />
should use for the judgement. Lojban metalanguage needn't have any<br />
validity outside Lojban, and any metalinguistic decision seems entirely<br />
arbitrary.)<br />
<br />
7. Lojban compounds are not always as compositional as the outline<br />
below would have it. Indeed, the merit of the compositional scheme<br />
given is that it works as often as it does, not that it can predict the<br />
behaviour of all conceivable compounds. The approach typically taken<br />
towards compounds like gusfu'i "photocopy" (gusni fukpi "light copy")<br />
is that they elide other morphemes in their derivation. Were these<br />
morphemes present, they would give a compositional derivation --- one,<br />
namely, in which the modifier would be an argument of the head, or in<br />
which the modfier and head both describe the same denotatum. It is<br />
worth asking how constructive such an account would be, when the<br />
current compound, while not detailing how light relates to copying, is<br />
sufficiently evocative of its sense. (Though the Chinese calque fragu'i<br />
"laser" from frati gusni "reaction light" may show this evocation is a<br />
matter of degree.)<br />
<br />
The current system also has no account of compounds where the modifier<br />
is a modal argument of the head predicate, such as jboselsku "Lojban<br />
writings" (lojbo selsku "Lojban expression"). Again, a strict<br />
compositionalist approach would posit some elided predicate which would<br />
make the modifier a proper argument of the head (like seke lojbo pilno<br />
cusku "PASSIVE ((Lojban use) express)"); again, the descriptive<br />
adequacy of such an account is questionable. Since modal arguments<br />
don't present a problem for compositional accounts not as strict as<br />
Lojban's (like Esperanto's), the system clearly needs some broadening<br />
to treat such cases explicitly, instead of purporting to reduce away<br />
all possible ambiguities.<br />
<br />
The 'elision' account is also invoked to treat cases where heads or<br />
modifiers are used unmodified, where the rules would predict<br />
passivisation phenomena (where the first argument of the predicate<br />
involved is exchanged with another argument). Two examples that have<br />
drawn much comment are le'avla "loan word" (lebna valsi "borrow word")<br />
and xekskapi "dark-skinned" (xekri skapi "black skin"). It has been<br />
argued that the former should be selyle'avla, from selylebna valsi<br />
"borrowed word", since loan words are both borrowed and words, but not<br />
both borrowers and words. I believe that lebna valsi is as evocative a<br />
compound as gusni fukpi, and there is no overriding need to saddle the<br />
language with longer than necessary compounds, simply to satisfy<br />
demands of an overstrict compositionality. I have accepted the<br />
criticism made to me, though, that xekskapi is 'incorrect', in that the<br />
head is not describing the denotatum, as is expected in Lojban. Someone<br />
dark-skinned is not skin, but someone with skin. This has led me to<br />
recommend against xekskapi in favour of xekselskapi ("black skinned")<br />
in my guidelines, and to frown on unmodified heads more than unmodified<br />
modifiers. It remains to be seen whether the prescriptive machinery of<br />
the language will enforce this restriction; from my experience,<br />
prescriptivism seems to be a potent force in artficial language<br />
communities, whose hold on any model of their language is always<br />
tenuous.<br />
<br />
===Appendix: The rules for Lojban compounds (lujvo)===<br />
<br />
The guidelines I have formulated in Nicholas (1993) can be summarised<br />
as follows:<br />
<br />
The argument set for a compound is a subset of the union of arguments<br />
of its component predicates.<br />
<br />
Arguments can be eliminated from this set by conveying redundant<br />
information (having the same denotatum as some other argument), or<br />
irrelevant information (which is taken as contrary to the definition of<br />
the compound's new concept.)<br />
<br />
As an example of the former, the predicate for gerzda does not have<br />
both a place for the entity housed (x2 of zdani "house") and a place<br />
(thematic role) for the dog (x1 of gerku "dog"), since they are<br />
presumed to have the same denotatum. As an example of the latter,<br />
laurba'u "to bellow", from cladu bacru "loud utter") does not have a<br />
place for the location at which the bellower is loud (x2 of cladu),<br />
since a bellower in New York is still "loud-uttering", even if she is<br />
quiet relative to an observation point in Melbourne.<br />
<br />
There are two interpretations of the relation between head and<br />
modifier. Either head and modifier are predicates both describing the<br />
denotatum (eg. balsoi "warrior" from banli sonci "great soldier"), or<br />
the modifier describes an argument of the head predicate (eg. gerzda,<br />
where gerku "dog" is an argument of zdani "house"). As a special case<br />
of the latter, the modifier may be the predicate of a sentential<br />
complement of the head (eg. ctigau "feed" from citka gasnu "eat act").<br />
<br />
The arguments of any component predicate should appear in the same<br />
order in the compound predicate, though they may be interleaved with<br />
the arguments of other component predicates.<br />
<br />
===Bibliography===<br />
<br />
Aronoff, M. 1976. Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Linguistic<br />
Inquiry Monograph 1. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.<br />
<br />
Brown, J. C. 1960. Loglan. Scientific American 202(6). 53-63.<br />
<br />
Cook, W. A. 1989. Case Grammar Theory. Washington (DC): Georgetown<br />
University Press.<br />
<br />
Cowan, J. 1991. Response to Arnold Zwicky's review of 'Loglan 1':<br />
Loglan and Lojban: A Linguist's Questions and an Amateur's Answers.<br />
ju'i lobypli 14. 21-29.<br />
<br />
Dasgupta, P. 1993. Idiomaticity and Esperanto texts: an empirical<br />
study. Linguistics 31. 367-386.<br />
<br />
Fanselow, G. 1988. Word Structure and Argument Inheritance: How Much is<br />
Semantics? In The Contribution of Word-Structure-Theories to the Study<br />
of Word Formation. Linguistische Studien Reihe A Arbeitsberichthe 179.<br />
Berlin: Akademie de Wissenschaften der DDR. 31-52.<br />
<br />
Nicholas, N. 1993. Doing the belenu blues: Lujvo place structure paper,<br />
Version 2. Lojban FTP Server (casper.cs.yale.edu).<br />
<br />
Schubert, K. 1993. Semantic compositionality: Esperanto word formation<br />
for language technology. Linguistics 31. 311-365.<br />
<br />
Waringhien, G. 1959. Lingvo kaj Vivo: Esperantologiaj Eseoj. La Laguna</div>Gleki