Eskimo Grice

J writes in commentary to "Noam's my man"


"Perhaps JLS you've noted some of the recent linguistics research which suggests CHomsky's universal grammar theory may not be as sound as Chomskyites initially thought. It's some Steinford U gal (Boroditsky or something). She asserts the Sapir-whorf hypothesis may be more plausible than originally thought."

Thanks for the update!

In any case, Grice would be prepared for the big refutation. The other day I was being reminded of the subtitle of a book by a 'disciple' of Grice: Deirdre Wilson, "Modern linguistics: the results of Chomsky's revolution", she called it. It's all about Grice!

But I was browsing an Edinburgh PhD by Stavros A., online, and there is a chapter, "The Gricean revolution".

Copernicus anyone?

---- Chapman ("The life of Grice" -- Palgrave) recalls that when she interviewed Mrs. Grice about her husband's activities with J. L. Austin she confessed: "They spent one term learning Eskimo".

--- To prove Boroditsky right, no doubt!

Consider Grice's scenario.

One pirot says to the other. (For surely, Chomsky is wrong in thinking lingo is for expression; it's for _communication_ or info-trasnfer).

"obble is fing"

"fing?" "More like fang"

"fang-b".

"Fing-c"

I.e. in this Eskimo pirotic communication, what feature the obble (or object) has makes all the difference.

What in Tarskiite comes out as

"Snow is white"

allows for a LOT of different structures (of thought, even) in Sapirese-Whorfese. Etc.