Re: live cultures

[Christopher Palmer <reid@pconline.com>]

On Sat, 20 Feb 1999, Robin Turner wrote:

[some langs use metaphor more than others]

> Note use of {ru'a}.  It's a speculation/postulation, not an assumption.
> I think languages start out very metaphorical, then some of the metaphor
> gets subsumed into the grammar, so the target domain loses any cognitive
> connection with the source domain. {mu'a} the Turkish equative suffix
> -dir/dIr/dur/dür comes from the old Turkish stem turu- (or was it türü-
> ?) meaning "stand", and the progressive suffix -yor- comes from yoru-
> (modern Turkish yürü-) meaning "walk", but there's no real connection
> now.

Examples are not data, but since you're calling this speculation, I won't
bother you about it. :^) It's an interesting thing to look into more.

> English seems to have done this less than many languages, possibly
> because of it's Creole origins and isolating structure.  Whorf
> contrasted Hopi with English along these lines.

Well, Whorf was something of an armchair linguist, and his understanding
of Hopi was not as deep as is required for hypotheses of this sort. (He
interviewed one informant in a hotel in New York.)

> > I think you have to be part of the 'in-crowd' to get listened to on the
> > COGLING list.
> 
> Actually, not my experience.  I'm a mere {ga'inai} English teacher, but
> they listen to me sometimes!

heh! I still think they're more than a bit elitist over there.

> {zo'o} when I get a personal response from George Lakoff, I'll know I've
> really arrived!

heh! :^)

> > Although the 'funny math' thread I started was somewhat
> > amusing for a while.
> 
> {.ua.ue} so that was YOU!  I thought I was the only Lojbanist on the
> cogling list.

Well, calling me a lojbanist is going a little too far, I'm afraid. :^) I
don't have quite enough time to dedicate to it as I'd like, although I try
to do a little lojban every week.



---------(( Christopher Reid Palmer : www.pconline.com/~reid/ ))---------

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