Grice writes in a seldom quoted essay, "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being" which was published after he died in 1988. He died in 1988, but this was published in an issue of a journal he often contributed to (well, once before, in 1986): the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, ed. by his friend B. F. Loar. It is published, the whole issue, "In memory of Paul Grice". Grice writes:
"It is evident that Aristotle habitually thinks of the focal item as being a
universal, or at least some kind of general entity; but such restriction is
not mandatory, nothing prevents the focal being from being a particular."
"Consider the adjective 'French" -- as it occurs in the phrases."
French citizen
French poem
French professor
"The following feateures are perhaps significant."
"The appearance of the adjective 'French' in these phrases is what I might
call 'adjunctive' rather than 'conjunctive' (or 'attributive')."
"A French poem is not, as I see it, something which combines the separate
features of being a poem and being French, as a fat philosopher would simply
combine the features of being fat and of being a philosopher [such as Sir Karl
Popper. -- JLS]."
"'French', here, occurs, so to speak, _adverbially_."
"The phrase 'French citizen' _standardly_ means "citizen of France", while
the phrase 'French poem' _standardly_ means "poem in French"."
"But it would be a _mistake_ to suppose that this fact _implies_ that there
are two (indeed more than two) _meanings_ (or _senses_) of the word 'French'.
[cf. R. Paul's doubts about capitalizing 'major' -- JLS]."
"The word 'French' has only _one_ meaning: namely, 'of or pertaining to
France' [and 'English' has only _one_ meaning: namely, 'of or pertaining to
England -- JLS]."
"It will, however, be what I might call 'context-sensitive'. We might indeed
say, if you like, that while 'French' has only _one_ meaning or sense, it
has a variety of _meanings-in-context_."
"Relative to one context, 'French' means 'of France'; as in the phrase
'French citizen', whereas relative to another context, 'French' means 'in the
French language, as in the phrase, 'French poem'."
-- whereas 'history' does not behave, _contra_ McEvoy, like this. JLS
"Whether the focal item is a universal or a particular is quite irrelevant
to the question of the _meaning_ of the related adjective."
"The medical art is no more the meaning of the adjective 'medical', as
France is the meaning of the adjective 'French'.
"As a concluding observation, I may remark that while the attachment of the
context may suggest an interpretation in context of a word, it need not be the
case that such a suggestion is indefeasible."
"It might be for instance that 'French poem' would have to mean, "poem
composed in French", unless there were counter indications; in which case,
perhaps the phrase might mean 'poem composed by a French competitor' in some
competition."
"For the prhase 'French professor' there wold be two obvious meanings in
context; and disambiguation would have to depend on a wider linguistic context
or on the circumstances of utterance."
(H. P. Grice, in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol 69).
Etc.
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If I said "I'd like to read a French poem," I would expect you to recommend a poem by a French poet written in French. I think my request would be ambiguous, but a poem in French by a French poet would clearly staisfy it. If we were to talk about someone who wrote in English and French, I think we'd talk about his poems "in French" or "in English," not his "French" or "English" poems.
ReplyDeleteMore generally, I don't like the idea that "French" has only one meaning but the context determines its import. To me "from France" and "in French" are two entirely different concepts - two logical devices - so any word that can mean either of them has two "meanings."
If we are going to insist that the (inverse?) zeugmatic "of or pertaining to X" is the ONE meaning of an adjective, then we are, I think, confusing "definition" with "meaning." Does "French" mean "of France" or "pertaining to France"? Those two must be different things, or one of them is, dare I say it, otiose. Help.
"A buen bosque vas por leña" as they say in Spanish. I'm not sure what I mean by that, but my first reaction is that your cri de coeur, aiuta, may be inoperative here. I hope not.
ReplyDeleteI mean, I distrust definitions, or daffyinitions, as someone called them. You _know_ that if I look up 'french' I'll be confused.
My mother, when pregnant, met a very handsome italian boy, in the street. His friends were calling him "Franco", from which she (my mother) inferred that that was his Christian name. Pregnant of me, she asked permission to my father, "I want to baptise this boy in my belly Franco". "No way," dad said. "We don't want him to be the laughing stock at school".
"Franco" means "Frank" -- i.e. the tribe of the Francii. These settled near Paris. And their kingdom became "Francia". _THAT_ is the only meaning for me. The root, 'frank-' is a very good one. It means honest, and all the good things about it.
Ditto with your teacher who would pronounce Angla-land.
So, back to your thing. First, I think it's rude of dictionaries to define upper-case entries. Surely I don't need an entry for "France", or "French". 'frank' yes.
The problem with upper-case entries in dictionaries is that they tend to be on the silly side. Burchfield comments (in The Making of the Oxford Dictionary, Faber) that "Turk" was once defined as
i. inhabitant of Turkey
ii. unwanton child
and of course there's
bulgarian
i. habitant of Bulgary
ii. heterodox
etc.
-- So what would I know.
I _THINK_ "France" is indeed a country. I think it's pretty rude to turn the 'a' of the country, "FrAncia" into an 'e', as in "French". It's even rudder to turn it into an 'o' as in Frog.
Frankly, I wouldn't know.
I think Grice makes sense when he considers:
an Eskimo poem
an Eskimo professor
an Eskimo citizen
-- surely it doesn't work because there's no COUNTRY 'Eskimo'.
We need the name of a country that is short enough that it does not undergo a morphosemantic change (as "France" --> "French" does) and that it can be used 'adjectively' and 'adverbially'.
"Argentine" may not do.
"Some Argentines, without means, do it"
(Porter).
"Argentine wine"
"Argentine professor"
-- surely not one teaching the Argentine language, I hope.
"Argentine poem"
"Argentine citizen"
--- Anglo-Argentines allways speak of the Argentine, and the Argentine. By the first they mean the 'natives', by the second the country. "Argentine Republic", you correct them. They correct _you_: "Whatever".
American may do, but the problem with America is that "The United States of America _IS_ a beautiful country". The singularisation here would provoke Grice?
Etc.
From the wiki,
ReplyDeleteand further to Grice's elaborations on the _meaning_ of "French":
Ultimately, wiki reads,
"the ethnonym 'Frank' has
sometimes been traced to the
Latin 'francisca' (from the
Germanic hypothetical *'frankon',
akin to the Old English 'franca'), meaning "javelin."
-- so javelinish?
"While the throwing axe of the Franks
is known as the 'francisca',
the weapon conversely may have been
named after the tribe."
Inverse zeugma for ya, alas.
"A. C. Murray says on p. 1 of his "From Roman to Merovingian Gaul: A Reader" (Broadview Press Ltd, 2000),
"The etymology of 'Franci' is uncertain"
-- and what in this world ain't? JLS
"('the fierce ones' is the favourite explanation),"
makes sense to me
I want to read a fierce poem
by a fierceful author
in a fierceful lingo.
"but the name is undoubtedly of Germanic origin."
Etc.
Another thing to consider is the meaning of "Alice" in new entry blog now. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty rude to turn the 'a' of the country, "FrAncia" into an 'e', as in "French".
ReplyDeleteSounds like the work of what I call the great vowel movement. Wouldn't surprise me if some words that were being pronounced with a long "a" were repurposed with short "e" sounds even though they were not spelled with "e" to begin with. (I love Speculative Etymology. There should be a degree in it.)
But I was serious in asking for an explanation of how "of or pertaining to" can be used to demonstrate a single "meaning" when "of" and "pertaining to" mean two things. One meaning of "French" is "of," and another is "pertaining to," and a third is "written in the language of" (N.B., not the language "pertaining to"), and another is "in the style of (think R-rated)," and another is ...
I get that the word has only one national identity - but see "Pennsylvania Dutch," which is a corruption of "Pennsylvania Deutch" and so is not of or pertaining to the Netherlands. (Now, there's a place name to riff on!) Still, the single national referrent seems to me hardly enough to establish that the word has only one "meaning."
I will grant that "French" has multiple meanings differently from how "sanction" has them, and that there ought to be words to describe both forms of polysemy if that's the word. But I think the word for what "French" has ought to be some made-up thingy like "implicature," not a hijacked bit of English that causes "meaning" to have another meaning.
Perfect. In my notes on ... I forget what. Analogical Projections I think, I re-wrote what Grice wrote, and find (I'm a terrible amanuensis) that I do not FEEL or want to have his loose style.
ReplyDeleteI stick with "SENSE". I think he means "sense". This is vague enough, but at least less so than "MEANING".
So Grice has to accept such things as 'meanings-in-context', but SENSE is univocal. Or something.
Etc.
Thanks, as always, to Kramer for his most brilliant commentary!
ReplyDelete