but who has no knowledge of ourclass
I feel like this may be different from many other papers that we write for our classes, since we always know that we're going to be graded by the teacher/professor, who obviously knows the point of the assignment and understands our perspective of the topic. It's a very good thing to be aware of that we shouldn't just cater to what the professor knows when writing for this class.
that would be tosay that the meaning of a word is just more words
And then we have to define those words, and then the words used to define those words, and then...
I turn to this topicin the next chapter.13
how suspenseful!
some topics could standin the relation to us that atomism and cathode ray experiments standin to the cow: we are jl1st too deeply stupid to grasp them
I always find this sort of thinking very fascinating. Humans are obviously very good (compared to other species on the planet) at thinking about smart things like linguistics and cathode ray experiments, but it's very logical to assume that there could be other beings that are so much more intelligent. It's like how humans have harnessed immense power from coal, nuclear, etc. but we're still not a Kardashev Type 1 Civilization (harnessed all the possible power on the planet), much less a Type 2 (all the power from the sun) or Type 3 (all the power in the galaxy). Um, I got sort of off topic. But maybe an alien from a Type 2 civilization would be able to define "chair".
extensionand the intension
I can remember this because extension is like the items that "chair"'s meaning extends to irl, while intension is like imaginary/possible chairs that someone could make with creative intentions.
Such an object could, in fact, be a chair; butit would definitely not have legs.
I'm really enjoying this extended example. Not only is it entertaining but it's a really good way to get into why definitions aren't perfect or correct.
Some well-known tropes
We don't need to memorize these, right?
asserting one reading while simultaneously denying the other.
An unemployed person deciding to buy a purse: "I am not getting that bag but I'm still getting that bag"
twenty-five words for ‘carry’
This is really impressive. Good job Tzeltal speakers! In Mandarin I can also think of multiple words for carry: bao (carry by hugging), bei (carry on back), ling (carry with hand?), tai (lift up and carry), ti, kang, etc.... Wow I actually didn't even realize how many there were until I started listing.
Drunk gets nine months in violin case
I don't get this pun tbh. Either the drunk is sentenced to living in a violin case for 9 months, or they were somehow prosecuted for violin-related offenses??
May I look at your paperweight?; or by saying: May Ilook at that quartz crystal?
These sentences still mean the same thing in context, I suppose. Maybe I could read a difference, slight though it is. With the 1st version, it would be more like the speaker is curious about the paperweight and what it's made of or something. With the 2nd version, it would be more like the speaker likes minerals and wants to examine the crystal that happens to be being used as a paperweight
I am very unlikely to object or to consider yourstatement in any way inappropriate.
True. I might still think "Wait a minute! I didn't know you had a cat!" but it would be inside my head, probably I wouldn't say it out loud in the discourse
the vice president can’t regret something he never did; Susancan’t stop doing something she never did
This explanation seems very much like something that someone would roll their eyes at and say, "Well, technically I guess..." but there's no sense in saying something like that is true just because it's technically not false. I suppose that's why it's a bit of an odd middle ground here
But when history calls, history calls.
I never thought about how repeating a part of a sentence like this really adds no semantic meaning, since it does add pragmatic meaning and our brains process it so naturally. I guess that's why this class is here to make us actually think about it
snoring.
honk shuuu
chiqu-it-it-...-it-o
This reminds me of in Intro to Ling when we talked about different ways repetition is used in languages, like here it is used to emphasize a diminutive while in some languages repeating a word or morpheme performs a grammatical function like making it plural
Sense is a fact about the language, denotationis a fact about the world or situation under discussion
Very helpful way to distinguish
escriptions m
Tbh I'm a bit confused on the difference between definite and indefinite descriptions. They can both be specific or non-specific? So I'm not sure how to tell which one a phrase is. Hopefully this will become more clear to me as I read
A referring expression is an expression (normally some kind of nounphrase) which a speaker uses to refer to something
I find this hard to believe.
cognitive semantics,
I spy with my little eye the word "cognitive"! Could this have something to do with why linguistics and cognitive science are so related that LGCS is one department??
bow-wow
who says this.................................
woof all the way
continues to be a matter of considerable discussion and controversy
Does it matter though? Maybe it's because I haven't studied this area deeply yet that I don't understand the need to delineate the division, but like with morphosyntax, can't you just study both at the same time when the line blurs?
speakers of a given language must agree, atleast most of the time, about what each word means
Yeah I guess speakers have to agree on pretty much everything about a language, not just word meanings but also on syntax and pronunciation etc., as well as the maxims of conversation in order to communicate.
slightly extreme
I don't know, it doesn't seem that extreme to me. I think it's pretty normal for people to use different meanings/connotations of words like that.