This approach is about investigating what you would need in order to start defining other vocabulary that would let you eventually define all of the vocabulary that any language uses. However, this could be seen as an artificial process that doesn't imply that the NSM itself can be used directly for complex communication (since perhaps the definitions for many common everyday concepts might end up running to book-length). I'm also not sure how they've thought about ostensive definitions, to help distinguish things like particular colors or particular animal and plant species.
I've used toki pona, which is a deliberately small constructed language that aims to make it inconvenient to say certain kinds of things. And indeed, it is very hard to unambiguously refer to particular species, other than by ostension and subsequent convention in a particular speaker pair or community.
This approach is about investigating what you would need in order to start defining other vocabulary that would let you eventually define all of the vocabulary that any language uses. However, this could be seen as an artificial process that doesn't imply that the NSM itself can be used directly for complex communication (since perhaps the definitions for many common everyday concepts might end up running to book-length). I'm also not sure how they've thought about ostensive definitions, to help distinguish things like particular colors or particular animal and plant species.
I've used toki pona, which is a deliberately small constructed language that aims to make it inconvenient to say certain kinds of things. And indeed, it is very hard to unambiguously refer to particular species, other than by ostension and subsequent convention in a particular speaker pair or community.