Re: English as a creole.

On Jul 29, 11:40 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1185738201.859915.247...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,





Darkstar <darkstar...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 29, 7:52 pm, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <1185713516.105889.196...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

Darkstar <darkstar...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

"To kill" is one of the most synonym-rich words in any language. It
tends to have lots of formal and slang substituents, including
borrowings.

Can you provide a citation for this claim? Where can we find the
representative cross-linguistic comparison of synonym counts for
"kill" and for other words that you are summarizing? Surely you
wouldn't just make up a random linguistic claim without basing it on
actual research!

Any good English thesaurus + Webster dictionary would do.

"Would do" or "did do"? Did you actually look these words up and do
the relevant synonym counts, or are you just assuming that your claim
is correct?

I speak several languages and I have looked up dozens of wordlists to
boot. My personal experience is sufficient for me.
Ask Phog, if you don't trust me. He is a better polyglot. (Actually,
no, don't ask him. He'll state the opposite just out of spite.)

Same for the common 5-10 European languages.

So you checked thesauruses and dictionaries for 5-10 languages? How
many languages *exactly* did you check? Which ones?

Learn to do YOUR OWN research and think with your own head instead of
looking into citations and references.

*YOU* made the claim, so it's up to you to provide the supporting
evidence for it. You can't expect your audience to do your research
for you! The audience will not indulge your arrogant laziness for
very long.

And, that's not basic lexics. At least, not a good example of it. See
a Swadesh list for an instance of basic lexics.

"Kill" is on the Swadesh list! It even made the cut for the 100-word
minimized list that Swadesh had to make after so many people pointed
out how unsound his original list was.

That's right. But it's not about the Swadesh lists. It's about the
STABLE BASIC LEXICS.

Where is this magical list of "stable basic lexics"? Who defined this
list? Who has taken the appropriate measurements of "stability"?

Actually, it
was a bad idea to put into the 100-word Swadesh list.

Don't blame me, I'm not Swadesh!

I don't blame anyone (except if "that anyone" doesn't start blaming
me).

There are plenty of words on the Swadesh list (including the 100-word
list) that have many synonyms in English:

man (guy, dude, bloke, fellow, chap, gent)
woman (chick, bird, lady, dame, gal)
child (tyke, kid, youngster, juvenile, minor, adolescent)
animal (varmint, creature, beast, critter)
big (large, substantial, hefty, immense, huge, enormous)
sleep (nap, doze, snooze, slumber)
say (speak, articulate, state, claim, utter)
walk (tread, step, traipse, stroll, saunter)
fly (soar, glide, hover)
give (donate, bestow, confer, present, bequeath, dispense)
see (look, observe, witness, behold, watch)
many (numerous, various, myriad, several)
head (noggin, cranium, bean, noodle)
belly (stomach, gut, abdomen, tummy, midriff)
breast (do I even need to list these?)

That's right. Especially, in the 200-word version

Almost every word on the list above is from the 100-word list. I
think the only exceptions are "man", "child", and "animal".

"Man" is in, also.

Which is
interesting, because those are arguably some of the most
common
objects in the world that human beings would encounter, and thus, the
most likely to be considered "basic". Surely more basic
than "fly"!
No word is absolutely
stable. Except the numerals 2 and 3 which hardly have any possible
synonyms (both "one and one"; "one and two" (?)), or at least the
fewest number of them.

Hardly!

two (second, pair, couple, duo, duet, dual, twin)
three (triplet, triad, trio, trinity, triumvirate)

Only "second", "pair/couple", "twin" and "third" would count. The
rest is easily discernible as containing recent cultural stuff (as in
duet) or repetitions of the same western IE roots *dui- , *tri-. That
would be irrelevant or no use in historical comparison.

I can't think of any common synonyms for eleven. Does that mean it's
more basic than two or three?

In many languages numerals above 5 are compound. In fact, Australian
numerals are often as simple as base 2 or 3. Therefore, "eleven" can
very well be "tenone" or "fivefiveone", etc. But if it's not, it's
potentially "basic" and deserves some attention.

But I can give you more synonyms for "kill" than for "fly" or "stand".

Perhaps for English. And your conjecture is that would hold for all
(or just "most"? or perhaps only "many"? a "few"?) other languages.
Where's the proof? Are you just making this stuff up as you go along,
or are you getting it from real, methodical research that you (or even
someone else) has done?

I don't have _a proof_. I'm not a prosecutor. Can't you rack your
brains a little and figure out why if there are such words as "croak"
or "ice" or "neutralize" in American spoken speech, other languages
would have something similar too? Probably because "kill" is
emotionally loaded, connected to hush-hush matters, and bound up with
euphemisms, and people constantly make up all kinds of synonyms to
avoid it.


Such common,
emotionally-unloaded adjectives as "green", "white", "short", "long",
"light", "round" (color, distance, size, mass) could be a good
example.

Could be, but aren't:

green (verdant, emerald, lime, chartreuse, jade)
white (albino, ivory, colorless, bleached)
short (dwarfish, tiny, stumpy, squat, diminutive)
long (extended, outstretched, protracted)
light (bantam, insubstantial, meager, gossamery)
round (rotund, spherical, circular, annular, globular, oval)

Compared to what? If you have 10 Canadian dollars how much is that?
What is the exchange rate to American dollars?

What on earth does international commerce have to do with how many
synonyms for "green" there are?

When a language has multiple words for the same entry on the Swadesh
list (whether non-interchangeable like "I/me", "we/us", "red/pink",
and I believe, Russian "goluboj/sinij", or essentially freely
interchangeable like "big/large" and "stone/rock"), do you have > some a

"Red", "pink", "goluboy", "sinij" have all different sematical
connotations. They're all diiferent colors.

In many languages, the equivalent of "red" is used to describe not
only those objects that English speakers would call "red", both also
those they would call "pink". Similarly, English "blue" is used to
describe both "sinij" objects and "goluboj" objects.

Then drop "pink" and "goluboj". The human eye percieves just red,
green and blue (and achromatic black&white). These are the true basic
colors.

Again I ask, how do you know a priori which one to use for
comparisons?

I don't. I just think. "He fixes radios by thinking" (c) Feynman

"Big" and "large" differ stylistically. Big is the principle, most
common word, large is more formal and much less common (type it at
Google and see the ratio if in doubt).

I did. You are (unsurprisingly) dead wrong, once again showing that
you just blindly make up claims without actually doing any research at
all. "Big" gets 671 million hits, while "large" gets 754 million hits.

Ha! Right, I didn't check. Okay, "big" and "large" are quite close in
English. They would be even more difficult to distinguish in a poorly
studied language.

"Large" is in fact more popular, though the numbers are close enough
that the difference isn't important (unlike with "stone" and "rock",
with "rock" being twice as common, even though Swadesh used "stone" on
his list...).

That's why "big" is basic
lexics, while "large", "huge" and "gigantic" probably not.

"Probably"?

priori, principled method for selecting one word over the other
options,

I don't have any standard-rate methodology,

At least you finally admitted it.

but I could name a few
principles such as semantical simplicity,

Oh, I'd love to see what algorithm you have for determining
"semantic[al] simplicity"!

It's a long story indeed. But I know that "red" is simple, while
"light green tinged with blue" is complex.

shortness (minimal consonant or syllabical length),

Okay, finally something that's reasonably quantifiable. Does this
mean that "sinij" is more basic than "goluboj" and that "rock" is more
basic than "stone"?

Two syllables should probably be frowned upon if one has a shorter one-
syllable alternative. So I'd probably dump "goluboj" but leave
"sinij". Yet, that's just one of the many parameters.
That would be evident only when you have a clearly compound or long
word such as "triumvirate" vs. "three".

or do you just wait until after you've done your comparisons
so that you can cherry-pick the word that gives you the best results
to prove your pet theory?

What "pet theory"? I don't have any.

Liar.

Nice to meet you. I already know you're one, so you don't have to
repeat.

Just look at the subject heading of this thread for one of your
many pet theories.

Neither pet, nor well-formed theories. Just some topics posted for
discussion... But you're getting as tiresome as usual.

.

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