[lit-ideas] In Search for the African Language
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2004 11:45:28 EDT
In a message dated 7/31/2004 5:31:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, goya@xxxxxxx
writes:
The statements "Kings of France are bald" and "The=20
king of France is bald" may be equivalent *from a truth-functional=20
viewpoint*, because they are both predications. However, not even=20
Russell would have been wacko enough to suggest, as jlsperanza does,=20
that the latter of these phrases implies that "something like the king=20=
of France exists". Predication is one thing, existence another.=20
Likewise, you cannot get from =93African languages are x", to "there=20
exists something like the African language", anymore than you can get=20
from the true proposition "all unicorns are white" to the false=20
propositions "unicorns exist" or "some unicorn exists".
----
Thanks to M. Chase, and to R. Paul for correcting M. Chase. Indeed, the
'wacko' one was Meinong -- a German, etc. --. In Russellian (and Gricean)
parlance, while"The king of France is not bald" _implicates_ that there is a
king of
France (due to the word 'not', not to the fact that we know France is a
Republic), "The king of France _is_ bald" certainly _implies_ it (i.e. that
there
is a king of France). (v. Grice, "Presupposition and Conversational
Implicature", in Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard).
But back to 'the African language':
M. Chase answers:
>>Do you speak any African languages?
>Well, I'm learning Egyptian.
There is a sense in which we can say that Egyptian is indeed _the_ African
language (_par excellence_). Ergo: 'the African language' = Egyptian. A purist
would perhaps object at this point that there's no such thing as _the_
African language (let alone anything as reasonably thinking that Egyptian is
_it_), but that's neither here nor there: the crux is that there _is_ a
legitimate, colloquial use of the definite description, "the African language"
to refer
to "Egyptian": Cf.
The African language M. Chase thinks is _the_ African language"
Oddly, this becomes otiose (and quasi-tautological) when expanded:
Egyptian is the African language that M. Chase thinks
is the African language"
I note "quasi-tautological", because M. Chase can be wrong -- or think
things differently.
A still different, current among historical linguists, legitimate use of
"the African language" is the definite description used to refer (attributively
and predicatively) to the Ur-African language -- a proto version of Swahili,
but with much more declensions--, out of which _all_ (current) other varieties
of the African language can be shown to have sprung (cf. "M. Chase speaks
French, therefore he speaks Indo-European", or "JL speaks Spanish, therefore
he
speaks Latin").
Cheers,
JL
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