Re: lexicon; comments
Rob Zook 
Thu, 12 Mar 1998 16:47:37 -0600

At 12:37 PM 3/12/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote:

>> Is the a vowel suposed to be pronounced like Bach, like base, or

>like 

>> bat?

>

>This has yet to be resolved, exactly. We're pretty sure that [a:] is

>as in German "Bach," and StandAmEng "stop." But [a] is a bit of a

>mystery...

Funny I thought that we felt pretty sure about [a], not [a:] since

an example pronunciation for [a:] does not even appear in the 

Lexicon.

<bigger>i - as in Eng. pit

u - as in Eng. put

e -    "       set

</bigger>o -    "       not

^ -    "       but in fast speech; almost as final vowel in              
     "teacher".

a - as in French patte

i: - as in Eng. mean

u: - as in Eng. prune

e: - as in French prenez (emphatic)

o: - as in Eng. fault

^: -     "      sir ; lengthened pronunciation.

>> In reading chapter 5, I wonder if there should be a camparative

>property 

>> in this section of the lexicon.  A way to say, like the friend,

>unlike 

>> the friend, same as the friend, and opposite of the friend.  I

>think we 

>> will find this neccessary for debate and logical sentences.

>

>Rob may have to respond to this, as I'm not sure how it relates the

>work he's done with logical particles. It looks to me that such will

>be handled differently in the two modes, though.

I think we need a whole selection of logical and mathematical 

operators, beyond what appears in the Lexicon. Some of which I have 

already proposed. You can view my proposal of how formal mode Vulcan 

might handle logical argumentation, here:

http://www,jccc,net/~sepstein/vald/0273,txt

and

http://www,jccc,net/~sepstein/vald/0306,txt

The original messages have a few typos and mistakes so be sure to check

out the follow up messages, before pointing them out to me please :-)

As far as comparisons go, we should handle them much more distinctly

and precisely than English does. I intend (when I get to it on my

list of things to do) to make another proposal regarding mathematics 

and what I call "abstractors".

Mathematics would have operators for basic concepts like equals,

plus, and greater than. You posed some example comparisons:

>like the friend, unlike the friend, same as the friend, and opposite of 

>the friend

We can express these some that now. Keep in mind that English has a

very primative logical structure, and that it's very difficult to 

express a precise logical equation in it exactly. This should not

be so difficult in formal mode Vulcan. 

For example, "opposite of the friend" rendered logically would equate

to NOT-friend. For "same as the friend" one could use a Vulcan equals

operator. But we really should compare more precisely than that, so 

we need to add what I call "abstractors". An example of the set of

abstractors I'm fiddling with:

<bigger>Sensory Abstraction Particles

iz  visual abstraction operator "looks like"

ez  audio  abstraction operator "sound like"

az  tactile abstraction operator "feels like"

oz  olefactory abstraction operator "smells like"

uz  gustitory abstraction operator "tastes like"

^z  non-verbal abstraction operator "feels like"

</bigger>

So using these one could say:

iw't'hai'la'^z 

iw'-t'hai'la-'^z

He -friend  -[non-vebal abstractor]

"He feels like a friend"

in'<bigger>r'mnasekiz

in'-r'mnasek-iz

it -book    -[visual abstractor]

"It looks like a book"

in'plomiikozong in'plomiikuzong plomiika

in'-plomiik-oz-ong 

it -plomiik-[olfactory abs.]-[logical and]

in'-plomiik-uz-ong

it -plomiik-[gustitory abs.]-[logical and]

plomiik-a

plomiik-[affirmation]

</bigger>

"It smells like plomeek, it tastes like plomeek, it is plomeek"

Another set of abstractors could indicate the level of abstraction 

of non-sensory events like a proposition:

ig  Observed directly

eg  Later recalled

ag  indirectly observed (information from another, heresay)

og  speculate (based on some previous thought or experience)?

ug  opine (because I say it is so)?

^g  ???

We could say for example, about the speaker of the above comments

about the plomeek soup: iw'aj iwl'aj plomiik'ig ("He or she directly

observed plomeek soup).

Now none of these examples should be taken as workable yet. Just a

snapshot of my thoughts at the moment. I'm not really satisfied with 

them yet. But they give a direction to what I'd like to see happen.

Rob Z.

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