Further to our discussion on the relevance (relevancy) or irrelevance (irrelevancy) of etymology in the recovery of an implicature (vis a vis Occam's modified razor) we may quote from Grice on 'disk'.
i. This disk is square.
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Is that odd?
Is that implicaturally otiose?
--
Grice writes:
"Suppose we consider a lexeme"
"Let that lexeme be "disk"".
"x is a disk".
"We are asked if 'disk' is polysemous or monosemous".
"We are inclined to say, caeteris paribus, monosemous. All words are caeteris paribus monosemous, and we still need to be presented with a truly polysemous at even disemous word".
"There is a special type of alleged polysemy which is dubbed hyponomy".
"The idea being that there is genus Sense and species Sense. Sub-Sense. Call this 'specificatory' sense (alleged). Sub-sense, really"
"The sub-sense, or specificatory sense is always a DERIVED sense". "It cannot have been stipulated 'out of the blue".
"The specificatory sense can be shown, by strict deductive steps, to follow from the hyper-nym".
"However, there's obsolete".
"I.e. the originally relevant, GENERAL sense, hyper-nym, has become obsolete" "Like 'car', meaning wheeled vehicle" (He writes, which confuses me. Is this obsolete? I wouldn't call something a 'car' unless it's a wheeled vehicle, and would trace the thing to car-riage, of course).
"But there is a slightly different scenario".
"The specificatory sense takes over [the general sense]."\
Here his intuition is one I may not share:
"We SHOULD, perhaps, continue
to call gramophone records _discs_ even
if, say, they came to be made square.
Provided, that is, that they remain NOT TOO
UNLIKE our current discs, in thus the
original, etymologically relevant,
general sense of the lexeme, 'disc'".
"(Perhaps the word 'cylinder' exemplifies the same feature."
----
And I'd add cupola.
For if the thing is just an inverted cup, I cannot see how we would like to call it cupola (from Gk. kyp-) unless it resembles (or indeed _is_) an inverted cup.
Etc.
JLS
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I don't understand the business about monosemous vs. polysemous. What ia "sanction"? How about "sense"? Please explain.
ReplyDeleteI'll examine 'sanction' and 'sense' at a later date, I hope.
ReplyDeleteI use monosemous as one-meaning. Other people use "monoguous" (and refer to this as monoguity).
polysemous is obviously the antonym. I prefer to stick just with di-semous, because I'm never clear if 'poly-' means more than two, etc.
(I wouldn't call a person who believes in TWO gods a polytheist).
In any case, this thing to show that I do think I understand Grice's example of 'car'.
Recall the song, "Strollin'"
"I don't envy the rich in their automobiles
for a car is rather phoney,
I rather have Shanksey's poney".
If a Cockney wheel-barrow boy comes to sell me some tomatoes, I wouldn't say he came in his 'car', although, as Grice notes, this was the original general (NOW obsolete, he claims) meaning of 'car'.
When or how the narrowing thing took place is interesting -- for indeed automobile makes more of a better sense. Although perhaps this was for Aristotle 'god' -- the unmoved mover. So that could be confusing.
"Sense" apparently started life in terms of 'sense-datum'. So how it got attached to 'sense' as the 'sense' of a word may confuse rather than illuminate. We don't mind what we _call_ the thing. We want to ask whether:
i. It is false the wheelbarrow boy came with his car. (It was a wheelbarrow, not a 'car')
ii. Sanction I'll have to analyse. Etc.
Etc.
"sanctus" -- made holy. "sant-facere". So this is pretty clear in terms of derivation:
ReplyDeleteYou deem something 'holy', in whatever sense you fancy. You 'make' it holy by deeming it holy. Abra ca dabra: you get the 'sanction'.
Surely you can fig. and met. extend the meaning, but that's what it meant. Call me obsolete, but at one point there was a transcategorial error. And things which were NOT 'sanctions' by this literal sense (and which would have falsely been described as sanctions) were licensed.
So those who dismiss etymology are wanting to have their cake and eat it! They want to trace the word (or not) to the root, and define it in ways that it clashes with the original sense.
Mind, not all words misbehave like that.
"Sun" always meant the same thing, to wit: the 'sun'.
It's odder words like 'sanction,' 'sense', 'car', that misbehave.
But knowing the logic of the hyponym and the hypernym usually helps -- plus the fact that these 'irrationalities' (why not call a wheelbarrow a car) have explanations.
"cow" for example, as Horn notes, originally meant something else, and because the most edible of the original cows was the female cow it was restricted to the female cow (rather than the bull).
"deer" was animal in general, but since Henry VIII would play with his friends, "Let's get some animals for dinner", meaning 'deer', cervus, the use stuck.
Etc. In general, the stereotypical, or prototypical, wins the day. But that's fairly unfair, on the whole (of the business at hand). Etc.
Can't say I recall "Strollin'." But I will say that "shanksey's pony" may tbe the first real use I have ever seen of the expression "Shank's mare" to refer to going on foot. Might be some interestin' OEDin' in that baby.
ReplyDeleteLet me clarify. I think I understand what "monosemous" and "polysemous" mean. I even had a professor in College (Morse Peckahm was his name, in case he'sa bigger deal than I remember) who taught that art was characterized by "non-semantic polysemy."
My question was about the claim that all words are monosemous. I read the claim a something like "Each word as an ur-meaning, and all other usages are metaphoric/metonymous." I think that may be true of many words, but I do have a problem with "sanction" as both the giving of permission and the gving of punishment. I suppose to "declare holy" (i.e., give permission) and "make holy" (by exacting penance) can explain both usages, but I wonder if that isn't just making things up that sound good fast. And, we run the risk of not knowing what is ur-meaning and what is derivation. Of course you would say that etymology resolves that problem, where I would say only that it may shed some light.
Thus, I don't mean to dismiss etymology entirely. I think it's a valuable inquiry. I'm just saying that what a word's progenitor meant 2000 years ago does not tell us authoritatively what the word means now.
In objecting to the overuse of etymology, I have in mind something like this from an old Phil-Lit post by Scott Stirling, attacking my defense of Keats':
Lawrence affirms this interpretation later when he says he is 'talking about the rhetorical equivalent of what mathematicians call elegance.' What the mathematician means comes from a stretch of the word 'elegance,' which comes from Latin meaning something like 'to choose out from.' It has, as my Webster's dictionary says, everything to do with 'scientific precision,' 'simplicity,' and 'neatness.' But these are not necessary qualities of great poetry or other fine art, though they may be present in part or all at once in some.
Now, whatever other quibbles Scott may have had - and I won't relitigate the matter here, as he is not present - the etymology of "elegant" does not add or detract from his argument, as the mathematician's use of "elegant" is not constrained by the meaning of the Latin words in its past, and the dictionary definition of "elegant" does not help except where it lists the mathematicians' usage. And even there, if I am wrong to have used "elegance," I would be wrong only in choosing the word, not in the claiming a relationship between certain proofs and beauty, which Scott seemed to want to debunk by appeal to the definition.
That's very good. And thanks for the context. yes, it's good to have that charming third party here: Scott.
ReplyDeleteOddly, I only use 'elegant' to apply to
* Audrey Hepburn
-- who I don't see in especially theorematic lines.
I think Keats was elegant, too. There is this new film I HAVE to see, Bright Star. I know ALL about the man, and when in Rome, I'm always praying at his house (Piazza Spagna, helps) and the cat-infested protestant cemetery.
I wonder what poem that was.
I do have a book by Bourbaki, on "Beauty in mathematics", etc. so the topic is interesting.
But I think you over-react to Scott if you think he is criticising. I would take it to be asking for a necessary/sufficient analysis of things.
x is elegant iff.
You are right that 2,000 years ago is hardly to have an effect on Audrey Hepburn (and of course she is already well _pasee_) but that's neither here nor there. If you find that it's YOU who are thinking of an element of 'elegant' that inspired you, etc.
In the long run, it's the idea of PREDICATES. There's an essay, "The married bachelor". If bachelor means UNMARRIED MALE, the title (a defense of Carnap against Quine) must be meant _oddly_, but in a challenging way.
I'll re-analyse the sanction. It seems that if we get a general sense:
to make 'holy'
then we would have both of your usages as sub-senses. I suppose I'm not against sub-senses (but don't spread the word). One may like to know that only one of the sub-senses was prior -- it would be too coincidental that both were ON THE SAME DAY to become operative -- and so trust a lexicographer to list THAT one first (but cfr. 'gay': 1. homosexual, 2. cheerful; or 'lesbian'. 1. female homosexual, 2. inhabitant of Lesbos).
Yes, Strollin' is what I call a working-class song, so you DON'T have to know it. It's by one Ralph Reader, (c) 1957 -- and of course I mispelled the thing, it's Shanks's pony, indeed (I find that a miracle of phonology, s's'). I only know it because it was repr. in a CD from the West-End Musical, Underneath the Arches, with Chestney Allen and Roy Hudd (playing Flanagan). It has a nice tune to it, VERY relaxing, and in G major. We do lots of those numbers where I'm from -- on a rainy day at the swimming-pool library. And this invites for umbrellas and things. Pretty cute).
Etc.
You can judge for yourself whether Scott was criticizing.
ReplyDeleteI am coming around to the ur-meaning approach. As I indicated in earlier posts, I find the metonymy route to usage hospitable, and that's consistent with a word having only one sense that we call "meaning."
But then we get to the questions of whether that meaning is the font from which other usage flows, or the centering on which the dome of usage is built, so that the usages remaing after the "meaning" is gone. "Sanction" does not mean "make holy." We have "sanctify" and "hallow" for that now. Yet "make holy" is the definition of sanction that makes it a good choice for the uses it now has. What's your take on that?
Yes, sure. And your prof. was pretty witty, challenging ye with things like 'non semantic polysemy'. Ditto, elsewhere, I have criticised Cruse (_the_ word in semantics) for his rather 'silly' (i.e. blessed) take on 'polychromatic shades of polysemanticism'. Etc.
ReplyDeleteI think he was onto art, as you say, your professor, but the point may help regarding your query, "what's your point on that?"
Take sem-. This root meant 'mean' in Greek. So that 'semantic' and 'polysemous' mean basically the same thing. So that 'nonsemantic polysemy' is something a (oxy)moron would say.
Yes, I think there IS a core meaning to things. Grice WoW:MR, takes
y is a consequence of x
as what lies behind 'meaning' (x meaning y) and we've discussed this. But I retype it here, since I think it's Grice at his clearest:
When applying his razor (do not multiply senses -- Gk. 'sem-' -- beyond necessity):
"It occurs to me that the root idea
[here] is that
x semeion y
this is equivalnet to, or AT LEAST CONTAINS as a part of what it means the claim that
y is a consequence of x
[measles is a consequence of the spots? I would have thought otherwise]. That is, ... that on some interpretation of the notion of consequence [not just causal], y's being the case is a consequence of x"
Consider:
"Measles!" he said. This can be a lie, so here we are not concerned with causal consequence (I find the phrase redundant, but I think Grice wants this to apply to geometry and algebra where causes don't usually hold).
"Those spots!", he cried, thereby meaning "measles". Again, this can be a lie. So no causality.
But yet in those cases above, the utterance is a consequence of at least an intention on the part of the utterer that the addressee will think that he thinks "measles". And THIS is expressed. There is a causal link to THAT intention. I discussed this with Martinich and he sort of liked it.
----
So yes, there is like a core case.
There is also an OPTIMAL case. Grice will go as far as that.
In my first paper ever, delievered in Buenos Aires, (well, first PUBLISHED paper ever) I discuss:
"I haven't been mugged yet" => Buenos Aires is dangerous, or potentially so.
cfr. Grice
"He hasn't been to prison yet, and he likes his colleagues" (as a reply to "How is Smith getting on at his new job at the bank?"). Implicature: "He is potentially dishonest, or rather than Smith is the sort of person likely to yield to the temptation provided by his occupation, or that Smith's colleagues are really very unpleasant and treacherous people, etc."
I proposed to adapt (O) -- Grice's criterion of optimality in a vacuous way:
"The cat is on the mat" is the OPTIMAL WAY to mean that the cat is on the mat (disquotational context: 'p' means that p).
All other dicta are not optimal and bound to confuse. E.g. "I haven't been mugged" means that Buenos Aires is potentially dangerous, etc.
So there.