Re: Apes and language

On Jan 31, 10:55 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 31, 11:44 am, Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote:

I
That's obviously an inaccurate paraphrase. What did he _really_ say?

August 2004, as I recall. We had a thing about Aristotle,
then I posed a question: what is language?, and asked
the members of sci.lang to answer my simple question.
I got two answers, one by Arnold Zwicky who told me
that only a fool can call this question simple, and the
other by Jacques Guy who considered my question
trivial.

Repeating your paraphrase does not constitute quotation.

I was amused by the contradicting answers and
couldn't refrain from drawing up a pair of Aristotelian
syllogisms. Here is how I recall them:

  Arnold Zwicky is from Stanford

  Stanford is a renowned university

  ergo his opinion has a weight

Arnold Zwicky's eminently well deserved reputation was made at Ohio
State University.

  Arnold Zwicky from Stanford considers my
  question so very demanding that only a fool
  can call it a simple question

  Jacques Guy considers my question trivial

  trivial is simpler than simple

  ergo Jacques Guy is foolisher than a fool

  Sorry, Jacques Guy. I would never call you more
  foolish than a fool. Aristotle does. Blame his logic.

To resume... What Hockett offered is neither a tentative description,
nor a definition. It's a list of features.

Thank you, that's exactly what I wanted to say.

Has it occurred to you to look in books about language or linguistics
to learn how scholars of language or linguistics define the term?
.

Relevant Pages