200-word vocabulary

[ffutures]

For the automaton thing I've said that the default vocabulary is 200 words - it seems about right. What I think I now need to do is decide what the most useful 100 or so words are, assuming that the remainder are specialised skill-related words etc. To make things easier I'll assume that plurals etc. of words don't count, e.g. gun, guns are one word (and would be skill-related anyway)

So... suggestions for the core vocabulary?

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Spoken or understood vocabularly?

Young children have a large vocabulary "inbound" but a smaller one "outbound".

This is particularly true of synonyms (the automaton would always say "drawing room" but would understand "sitting room", "living room", "front parlour" etc. as being the same location)

I suggest that most verbs it will know be built in, but that a certain number of nouns be assignable by the owner to reflect a particular use of the automaton.

And I think it was Heinlein in Glory Road (or was it Delany in Babel-17?), suggested that the words like "between", "into" etc. are good words to learn first, nouns can be acquired as necessary.

The vocabularly for a basic pc adventure game (Collosal Caves etc.) would be a good starting point otherwise.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent idea - I'll look for something like that.