From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Fri 01 Nov 2002 - 07:09:39 GMT
On Thursday, October 31, 2002, at 05:00 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Language categorizes the objects and processes of the world according to
> common descriptions. These descriptions are type-descriptions, and
> each is
> apploed to many tokens of that type. You can ask Wittgenstein, Chomsky,
> Fodor, Benveniste, Lakoff, and any number of differing (on other issues)
> linguists and language philosophers; this is one they agree upon.
These are descriptions, yes, but are they what language is actually
_doing_?
> It is a different behavior to look at or speak of a different tree, so
> they cannot
> collectively be called trees any more
It _is_ a different behavior- each behavior across time _is_ a different
behavior- no-one or nothing can do in the next moment what they did a
moment ago. That moment, as well as the conditions of that moment, are
passed. And of course all trees can all be called trees. They _are_ all
trees. (But, call them anything you like, the tree remains.) Just as all
behaviors _are_ all behaviors.
I ask again, what do _names_ have to do with something? At all? Period?
The name of something _is_ a type/token object, yes, but it is not the
thing itself.
I fail to see what the categories of names has to do with the actual
process of the way language is physically happening in the brain.
"The name of the song is 'Haddock's Eyes', but the song actually is
'Sitting on a Gate'."
- Wade
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