Instead of picking the different uses of 'get' one of by one, JL and Donal can take a look at this worksheet. (Although I am not too sure about the philosophical relevance of this.) http://esl.about.com/cs/intermediate/a/a_get.htm On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > In a message dated 9/29/2014 3:28:38 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx quotes: "This seems to reject analyticity with > regard to > 'get you'." and comments: "It seems to me "analyticity" is beside the > point: > W's main point is that sense can only be shown not said. It might be added > (though it is implicit in the claim that a "meta-rule would also fail to > say its own sense"), that while W of course accepts we often 'use words to > explain the meaning of other words' his view is that we are using words to > show the sense and that the words will not say the sense. This idea, that > fundamentally words only show their meaning (usually via their use) and > do not > say it [and hence can only show the meaning of other words and do not say > that meaning], does not involve "analyticity" in traditional terms: if you > give someone who has no acquaintance with number-systems a proposition > like > "2 + 2 = 4" you cannot convey its meaning through "analyticity" but only > by showing its use (the explanation of its meaning in terms of > "analyticity" > is parasitic upon meaning that has been already shown as to the use of the > terms involved). It is obvious that the sense of an expression like "Get > you" cannot be conveyed by mere "analyticity"; and a dispute as to whether > it is analytic (or not) is a philosophers' dispute that is parasitic on > meaning that is already established without involving any philosophical > notion > of "analytic"." > > My bad. I was using 'analytic' in a rather obscure way used by SOME > linguists, when they say that English is more analytic than it used to be > (as > opposed to 'synthetic'). > > I think I meant COMPOSITIONALTIY. > > A brief note on this use of 'analytic'. Latin is said to be very synthetic: > in that the past perfect second person plural of a verb is usually just > expressed by ONE word. Possibly in Anglo-Saxon times, this applied, too, > since Latin and English share an Indo-Germanic base. But today, in > English, you > need an auxiliary, and the expression of the second person, 'ye' (say). > > Similarly, Latin used to be 'synthetic' in that the accusative case was > expressed by just one word, but in the Romance languages, no accusative > forms > survive as such, and prepositions do the work once done by case. > > And so on. (It may be argued that THIS analytic-synthetic distinction is > not a valid one, in that declension and conjugation -- the core of the > synthetic system -- can be de-composed into analytic elements). > > So what I perhaps meant was COMPOSITIONALITY, as per the principle of > COMPOSITIONALITY. I was never too much of an adherent of this principle, > but, in > Griceian parlance it seems to work as follows: > > There's expressions which are basic, like 'Abracadabra', or 'Fido'. > > Others are not so basic, like > > 'Fido barks'. > > Or > > "Fido has been barking all night'. > > Or, to use an Ulster turn of phrase > > 'They don't lick it up off the grass'. > > As opposed to 'grass', > > 'They don't lick it up off the grass' > > or > > 'Get you' > > seems complex and COMPOSED of more minor elements, to wit: respectively: > > 'they' + do + not + lick + it + up + off + the + grass. > > Grice notes that 'grass' is ambiguous: 'material out of which lawn is made' > or 'marijuana'. He's example, the ambiguity, when > > "When I'll be helping the grass to grow, I shall have no time for > reading". > > -- ("The utterer's meaning will differ whether we take 'grass' to mean > 'marijuana' or not"). > > McEvoy was suggesting 'Get you' to be a contraction of "Look at you', and I > think that this may be the key, and I suppose there is a source that can > verify this. > > There is a /tch/ sound in > > "Look at you", > > when utterered fast > > /lukatcha/ > > and it may be that there is a false formation or deformation here, and that > the 'lu-' got dropped (as in 'cherry'?) which gave: > > "tcha" > > which since it's meaningless, was converted, by reanalysis, onto: > > "get you". > > In any case, it may help to compare: > > "Look at you" > > from > > "See you". > > "See you" or "Seeya" seems to be short for "I'll be seeing you". In the > "Look at you", the imperative form seems to indicate: > > "Look at yourself". > > -- to emphasise the 'you look at yourself', since you can see I am already > looking at you. The idiom seems to equivocate on the fact that unless there > is a mirror around, one will NOT look at oneself (one's nose, for > example). > > --- In any case, this post then to trade on 'compositionality'. I say I > have caveats, because it seems to me that meaning is GLOBAL, and it's what > the > utterer globally means that counts. But there is some sense to the idea > that the meaning of a complex expression (such as "Get you", or "They > don't > lick it up off the grass') DEPENDS on the meaning of its constituents. > > It would be up to the Wittgensteinian to see how we can deal with the > principle of compositionality which the "show, don't tell" adage seems to > be > undermining. > > Witters would possibly rely on OSENSION (which was coined by Augustine of > Hippo?). But while it is easy to provide an ostension of 'grass', and > 'lick', and 'they', and 'up', it seems more difficult to provide, by > ostension, > the meaning of 'it' and 'off', and 'the'. > > If 'Get you' is short and re-analysis from "Look at you", while it may easy > to provide an ostension of 'look' and 'you', it seems more complicated to > provide an ostension for 'at', and note that one phenomenon of English > analyticity (as I was saying) relies on propositions (and phrasal verbs): > look > at you, look after you, look for you, and so on. They all seem to share > some meaning of 'look', and the meaning of the more complex expression > does > not just depend on 'look' and 'you', which can be shown ostensively, but > on > the meaning of the contribution made by the preposition. > > While prepositions surely all started having a 'physical' or 'spatial' > meaning, ostension may still be a bother. Not to mention when the > preposition > has sort of disappeared from the surface form, as in "Get you", or there is > no preposition involved, but the meaning of 'you' as some sort of object > to > the action of 'getting' seems to be operating here. > > And so on. > > Cheers, > > Speranza > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, > digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html >