Re: English as a creole.

"Nathan Sanders" <nsanders@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nsanders-876D4F.12520229072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <1185713516.105889.196560@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Darkstar <darkstar100@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 29, 12:49 am, phogl...@xxxxxx wrote:

German, for instance, has borrowed the words "Killer" (and the verb
"killen", to kill) from English, as if there were no German words for
killing. It simply has a particular ring to it. (Nowadays, however, it
is mostly used in the sense of a contract killer. It is also an
emotionally loaded word: somebody you call a "Killer" in German is an
exceptionally hideous and psychopatic kind of killer.)

Same in Russian. "Killer" (hitman) is now from English because there
were no hired hitmen before 1991.

"Killer" in Russian can only refer to a paid assassin?

(I also find it unrealistic that no one ever in the history of Russia
got paid to kill someone before 1991!)

And equally unrealistic is that they would never talk about it
happening somewhere else.

In any case, he must have meant "before 1991 AND after 1990".
:-)
pjk


"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!

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.

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?)

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)

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

Nathan

--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program
Williams College
http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/

.

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