I am not sure I understand. I am only discussing creating a semantics metric for a short
list of words. I only suggest that the short list size be a power of 2 so that we can use
binary/boolean concepts.  Any list has to be  finite in order to be useful. We cannot
handle infinity.

Geraldine Reinhardt wrote:
Sorry.  I'm not clear as to how you will deliniate your "Hubey" list.  If there is no final number,  then the list should exist for infinity?  Right?
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
From: H.M. Hubey
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Re: replacement rates

No final number. This will work for something like the Swadesh list. There are other
ways to get semantic distances from dictionaries. I would be interesting to compare
them after they have been worked out.

Geraldine Reinhardt wrote:
Interesting.  Does that leave the final number at infinity (in the power of 2)?
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
From: H.M. Hubey
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Re: replacement rates

IT would have to be in powers of 2. I got started on 32 already. We can double it
to 64, then  128. We'd have to add 28 more to Swadesh 100. Then we can double to
256, and we only need 28 more for that.

Gerry wrote:
Most interesting.  Yet based on Boolean ideas, how many words would be contained in renovating the Swadesh list?
 
Gerry
----- Original Message -----
From: H.M. Hubey
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 6:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Re: replacement rates

There is a shorter way. We can start with a subset of the Swadesh list. Yakhontov
already has a shorter version which has 35 words. A simple metric should probably
be based on Boolean ideas. 32 is a good number since it is a power of 2. I already
got started but haven't had time to pay attention to it. If anyone is interested, we can
collaborate.

tgpedersen wrote:
--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com, "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I think what linguistics needs is a "semantic metric". I know how
to
> derive at least two different
> ones from data but need time and money :-) I think all linguists
should
> appreciate the need for
> semantic metrics. It does not matter how many. That could always be
> worked out, fixed,
> repaired, improved etc. The trick is to get going.
>
That would require us to know some canonical development of a
canonical set of concepts. That is a tall order.

Torsten



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-- 
M. Hubey
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
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can be created by unskilled labor. Arthur C. Clarke

/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/ http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey



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...
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...
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-- 
M. Hubey
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The only difference between humans and machines is that humans
can be created by unskilled labor. Arthur C. Clarke

/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/ http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey


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-- 
M. Hubey
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The only difference between humans and machines is that humans
can be created by unskilled labor. Arthur C. Clarke

/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/ http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey