[lit-ideas] Re: Drei Kleine Nachtmusiken
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 17:09:07 EST
In a message dated 3/5/2009 3:49:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Get over it.
It has struck me that
-----
I'm safe that C. Bruce seconded me on that. Must say I loved his plethora of
examples:
>
>There is a [scope, i.e. syntactic, the only ambiguities I do recognise! --
J. L. S. ]
>ambiguity about 'a little' in English which does not occur in German [with
constructions
>of equivalent 'meaning',]
>Ich werde ein bisschen Nachtmusik spielen.
literally
I worth one bit night music play.
Geary is right about the plethora, but he was struck by the wrong lightning.
In fact, Zipf's Law is, "the more important one concept is, the less [sic]
verbalisation it has"
One example is indeed, 'tit-bit".
"I'll play, or as the Spaniards, say, TOUCH you a tit-bit of music"
This offends the American ears who can cope with the monstrosities of a
Britney Spears, and alla Daniel Webster, will re-spell:
"I'll play a liddle tiddlebit of music in the evening".
/litl/ is pronounced /liddl/ in American.
/wo:dr/ is 'water'.
They have an articulatory problem there, and the sad about it is it takes
two to recognise it.
-----
C. Bruce who is safely Canadian writes:
>Ich werde eine kleine Nachtmusik spielen.
i.e. I worth one clean night-music spill.
This he renders:
"a little music of the night"
"a small music of the night"
It should pay to do 'small' too, and even 'little' because, to follow
Geary's pleonasm about the plethora, it is their inexistence in High German
(or the
highest bits of Germany if you must) to explicate [sic] the overuse of
'klein' to mean 'almost anything you wish':
"small" is first attested by King Alfred, translating Boethius, "Him ne
hanga nacond sweord ofer aem heafde be smale raede". OE 'smael' is cognate with
Old Frisian "smel" (West Frisian "smel", North Frisian "smul:), MDu. (Du.),
OSaxon [C. Ward take notice. JLS] (Middle Low German., Low German), Old High
German (Middle High German) smal (G. schmal), ON. smal-r (rare; Norw., Sw.,
and Da. smal, are from Low German.), Goth. smals; connexion with ON. and Icel.
smár (Norw. and Da. smaa, Sw. små) small, Old High German smâhi (Middle High
German smæhe) insignificant, is DOUBTFUL:
---- I disagree. It is highly probable. What is doubtful is that the OED
will recognise Grice.
Grice would say, about the 'implicature' of
I'll play you a little night music
with little = smaehe (medieaval)
understood as
I'll play you a little insignificant night music.
otiose in the sense that the would-be hearer is well judged to react,
"Bitte, do not worry".
-----
"... and relationship to forms outside of Teut. (as OSlav. mal) somewhat
uncertain. In the later Continental languages the prevailing sense is that of ‘
slender’, ‘narrow’.
---
As for 'little', it's first attested in Aelfric (1000), "Aelfric would as
little book awendan to English ereorde of am staefcraefte"
The lexeme OE lýtel, lytel, corresponds to Old Saxon luttil (MDu. luttel,
lettel, Du. luttel), Old High German luzzil, also liuzil, lzil (Middle High
German, mod.G. dial. luetzel), all from WGer. *lttilo-, f. *lit (prob. f. the
root of OE. lútan to bow down: see LOUT v.) represented in OE. lýt, lyt (and
the equivalent forms: see LITE n.), and in OS. luttik, OFris. littich, Old High
German luzzîg little. A synonymous and phonetically similar (but radically
unconnected) adj. OTeut. *lîtilo- is found as Goth. leitils, ON. lítell (Sw.
liten, lilla, Da. liden, lille), and possibly in OE. lítel, MDu. lîtel,
mod.Flem. lijter; the root *lt-:pre-Teut. *leid- may be cogn. with *loid- in
Gr.
abuse, L. ludus (:*loidos) play; some scholars have compared Lith. laidau I
let flow, leidu I set free."
And you see that the hearer of Mozart (for this is not Mozart's own
sobriquet) naturally felt that 'eine kleine nachtmusik' _sounded_ better than
the now
dialectal 'ein luetzele nachtmusik'.
----
C. Bruce continues:
>Ich bin ein klein Saufer.
>= I'm a little drunk (i.e., a drunkard of small stature).
I was sort of offended that Geary did not take sides with this, "I'm a
little drunk" is incorrect English (or 'inkorrekt', not "oll korrekt"). With
correct English, there is no ambiguity.
cfr.
"I'm a slight drunkard"
"I am slightly drunk"
-----
The OED is clear about this. 'drunk' can mean "a drunk man" -- but only "in
Sc. and north. dial."
1852 J. W. CARLYLE Let. 18 Oct. (1949) xvi. 236
When I got up at my usual hour (six o'clock), I reeled about like ‘a drunk’
(as Mazzini would say).
--- that's right. Blame Mazzini.
1882 BESANT All Sorts vii. 61
Such a brave display of disorderly drunks.
1889 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 26 Apr. 1/6
To show the very large percentage of drunks among the commitments.
1891 R. KIPLING City Dreadf. Nt. 30
The burly president of the lock-up for European drunks.
Note also that, Aristotelianly, 'stature' is high or low, but not small or
big. In America, /big/ now means very different things except what it literally
does!
-----
It may also pay to reconsider Clinton:
"Ich bein ein klein Berliner"
"I am, if I may, be considered, by now, to have become, in part, something
of a Berliner".
Bruce:
>Ich bin ein bisschen betrunken.
and renders this as
"I'm a [little] bit drunk."
What Geary would note is that in English the possibilities are, _contra_ S.
Ward, endless (Ward says that the possibilities of historical construal along
the Saxon Roman road are _not_ endless, which puzzled me). For we can
combine, 'a little' with 'bit'.
"I am a little bit drunk"
Whereas it is otiose or downright ungrammatical to say,
"I am a little bit drunkard"
----
Pragmatics constraints counteract, "I am a short-statured drunkard". In
fact, "drunkard" becomes otiose if you can _smell_ it (cfr. Frisan 'smel',
small). For surely unless you are doing web-cam or so, it is an
over-informative
thing to grant, "I am short-statured". In fact, I never head an American _ever_
say, "I'm short". Rather you hear, "_You_ are tall". The onus is always on
the other -- and where 'tall' becomes via implicature, 'too tall' (Thank God
I'm not).
----
C. Bruce:
>(It's interesting to note that the bite/bit - Biss/Bisschen
>correlation is preserved across the languages.)
--- Except American. Note the little collocations for "tit-bite".
Geary writes:
>J. L. is right about the tit or mamary-gland bite. It's
>not something you'll hear in Memphis. Which leads
>me to the philosophical point: the more common or
>important something is within my culture, the more
>words I lack to communicate it. Thus the plethora of
>words to name all sorts and sizes of birds. Herring
>gull, black-headed gull, lesser gull, Jamaican gull.
>So, too, with children's language. 'poo' this, 'poo' that.
>All bodily elimination and its products, in their
>variety, become in the Roschian prototype, 'poo' --
>'kaKA' at most.
>While there is substantival variety in the _literary_
>register for 'shitting', 'fucking' and 'drinking', it's only
>shit, fuck and drunk that remain the only offensive
>ones. Any variation on the standard is dubbed
>'marked': 'hottosh', 'penetrate', 'pissed'. I should
>write a fascicle about this.
Thanks to C. Bruce for his comments. I'm glad he's not offended.
Cheers,
JL
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