Ian_Ryan comments on Language, intelligence, rationality - Less Wrong
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By the way, in that word language, I simply have a group of 4 grammatical particles, each referring to 1 of the 4 set operations (union, intersection, complement, and symmetric difference). That simplifies a few of the systems that we find in English or whatever. For example, we don't find intersection only in the relationship between a noun and an adjective; we also find it in a bunch of other places. Here's a list of a bunch of examples of where we see one of the set operations in English:
I might be wrong about some of those, so look at them carefully. And I'm sure there are a bunch of other examples. Maybe I missed a lot of the really convoluted ones because of how confusing they are. Either way, the point is that there are a bunch of random examples of the set operations in English. I think simply having a group of 4 grammatical particles for them would make the system a lot simpler and perhaps easier to learn and use.
Are there any natural language that do anything like this? Sure, there are probably a lot of natural languages that don't make the distinction between nouns and adjectives. That distinction is nearly useless in a SVO language. We even see English speakers "violate" the noun/adjective system a lot. For example, something like this: "Hand me one of the longs." If you work someplace where you constantly have to distinguish between the long and short version of a tool, you'll probably hear that a lot. But are there are any natural languages that use a group of grammatical particles in this way? Or at the very least use one of them consistently?
Note: Perhaps I'm being too hard on the noun/adjective system in English. It's often useless, but it serves a purpose that keeps it around. Two nouns next to each other (e.g., "forest people") signifies that there's some relation between the two sets, whereas an adjective in front of a noun signifies that the relation is specifically intersection. That seems to be the only point of the system. Maybe I'm missing something?
Another note: I'm not an expert on set theory. Maybe I'm abusing some of these terms. If anybody thinks that's the case, I would appreciate the help.