[lit-ideas] Re: Russian?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 07:54:57 +0000 (GMT)
>I'd suggest that most or
all of these supposedly unsayable things can become sayable, if the
pragmatics of language calls for them to be sayable.>
If I understand this
right, then it might be rephrased - avoiding terms like "unsayable"
which has a particular meaning in Kantian and Wittgensteinian approaches
whereby the unsayable cannot become sayable, and also jargon like "the
pragmatics of language". Rephrased: most of what might appear to be some kind
of nonsense in that it
violates some 'rules' in a particular language, would not be nonsense if that
particular language had different 'rules' - and in many/most cases the 'rules'
in a particular language could be otherwise because they
fall short of being strictly logical rules or rules that are inescapable for
some other reason.
On this view, a 'box of pizza' may or may not be regarded as a proper
construction depending merely on contingent and variable 'rules' in a
particular language: and what is regarded as a proper construction in one
language may not be so regarded in another. In one language referring to a 'box
of rain' may be nonsense where it is used to refer to heavy rainfall, in
another the expression a 'box of rain' may be an accepted idiom that refers to
heavy rainfall.
It is therefore a sandtrap to mistake variable contingencies that govern
'sense' in a particular language for some kind of necessary truths as to what
makes sense.
Expressions that deviate from norms of 'sense' are often not therefore nonsense
in the sense that they are unintelligible: we can understand their 'sense' even
if the expression deviates from norms of 'sense'.
This is very evident in language-acquisition: a child may grasp the term "bit"
as a quantifier - as in "It's a bit scary". Here "a bit" means "quite". They
then may apply this in a way that violates norms of sense as when they are
asked how they are and reply "I'm a bit fine". We understand the 'sense' of
"I'm a bit fine" nonetheless - it means something like "I'm quite fine". But
somehow norms of language affect sense so that, in terms of those norms, "a
bit" is apt to mean "quite" in "It's a bit scary" but not apt in "I'm a bit
fine". For an adult to say "I'm a bit fine" might be taken as indication that
they are not very fine at all (because of 'implicature' that only "a bit" is
fine leaving the rest not fine), which is not the sense the child intends.
Might say more but need to mind 3 year old - and their language.
Donal
On Friday, 3 January 2014, 22:54, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'd suggest that most or all of these supposedly unsayable things can become
sayable, if the pragmatics of language calls for them to be sayable. If we have
no glasses and have to serve vodka in china cups, a 'cup of vodka' will quickly
become a sayable expression. Simarly with a 'glass of soup' if we haven't got
cups or plates. I don't want to get too Donally here, but really a distinction
has to be made between linguistic pragmatics and philosophical logic. A
statement like : "two cups of tea are five cups" violates logic, although to be
honest I can imagine contexts in which even this is sayable. Human language
isn't by any means literally translatable into the language of formal logic, or
vice versa. End of sermon now, but this is meant as a serious comment.
O.K.
On Friday, January 3, 2014 6:14 PM, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
Po Russkie, a cup and a glass may be made of the same material - i.e., plastic,
glass - and still the former would be called "krushka" and the latter "stakan."
The shape is the thing, though their edges are admittedly at times fuzzy. While
there are plastic glasses and plastic cups, never the twain shall meet.
Things never said in Russian:
- a glass of soup
- a cup of beer (unless of course all the glasses have been smashed in the
fireplace and cups are all that remain.
- a glass of pizza
- a cup of pizza
- a glass of herring
- a cup of single malt (the Scots may contend this does not generalize to
Scottish)
- a glass of borscht (a cup of borscht is perfectly
in order, though Russians
prefer bowels))
- a glass of pieroshkis
I don't know who meant what in Julie's post, as my mug of tea is not empirical
but purely transcendental.
Vsevo horoshovo, Valodsya
Quoting Julie Krueger <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>:
> May I revise my statement about English? I should have said that in the
> part of the country I live in, American English does pretty much use "cup"
> and "glass" to indicate the shape of a container, rather than what it is
> made of. Which, oddly to me, is what
the quote indicates about the Russian
> distinction (and "juxtaposes" it with the English distinction). So either
> she meant to say that Russian distinguishes between cup and glass based on
> what they are made of, or Russian doesn't differ from English in this
> particular case, or my understanding of the English useage is either faulty
> or narrow. I'm trying to figure out which...
>
> Julie Campbell
> Julie's Music & Language Studio
> 1215 W. Worley
> Columbia, MO 65203
> 573-881-6889
> https://juliesmusicandlanguagestudio.musicteachershelper.com/
> http://www.facebook.com/JuliesMusicLanguageStudio
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 7:12 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Ia message dated 1/2/2014 7:58:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> > juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx writes:
> > cups and glasses, but in Russian, the difference between chashka (cup)
> and
> > stakan (glass) is based on shape, not material.>>I wonder if she meant to
> > say the opposite? To me, in English, the difference
between "cup" and
> > "glass" usually is the shape. Is that different in Russian?
> >
> > Mmmm
> >
> > I wonder.
> >
> > But then I would think that:
> >
> > That glass is made of glass.
> >
> > is what philosophers (or Witters at any rate) would call a tautology, i.e.
> > an item that does not "speak" about the world.
> >
> > Revising the etymologies may help, though -- or then, confuse one further!
> > :) -- below.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Speranza
> >
> > ---
>
>
> > cup:
> >
> > from online source: Etymology Online:
> >
> > Old English cuppe, from Late Latin cuppa "cup" (source of Italian coppa,
> > Spanish copa, Old French coupe "cup"), from Latin cupa "tub, cask, tun,
> > barrel," from PIE *keup- "a hollow" (cf. Sanskrit kupah "hollow, pit,
> > cave,"
> > Greek kype "a kind of ship," Old Church Slavonic kupu, Lithuanian
> kaupas).
> > The Late Latin word was borrowed throughout Germanic; cf. Old Frisian kopp
> > "cup, head," Middle Low German kopp "cup," Middle Dutch coppe, Dutch kopje
> > "cup, head." German cognate Kopf now means exclusively "head" (cf. French
> > tête, from
Latin testa "potsherd"). Meaning "part of a bra that holds a
> > breast" is from 1938. [One's] cup of tea "what interests one" (1932),
> > earlier
> > used of persons (1908), the sense being "what is invigorating."
> >
> > glass:
> > Old English glæs "glass, a glass vessel," from West Germanic *glasam (cf.
> > Old Saxon glas, Middle Dutch and Dutch glas, German Glas, Old Norse gler
> > "glass, looking glass," Danish glar), from PIE *ghel- "to shine, glitter"
> > (cf.
> > Latin glaber "smooth, bald," Old Church Slavonic gladuku, Lithuanian
> > glodus "smooth"), with derivatives referring to colors and bright
> > materials, a
> > word that is
the root of widespread words for gray, blue, green, and
> > yellow
> > (cf. Old English glær "amber," Latin glaesum "amber," Old Irish glass
> > "green, blue, gray," Welsh glas "blue;" see Chloe). Sense of "drinking
> > glass" is
> > early 13c.
> > The glass slipper in "Cinderella" is perhaps an error by Charles
> > Perrault, translating in 1697, mistaking Old French voir "ermine, fur" for
> > verre
> > "glass." In other versions of the tale it is a fur slipper. The proverb
> > about
> > people in glass houses throwing stones is attested by 1779, but earlier
> > forms go back to 17c.:
> > Who hath glass-windows of his own must take heed how
he throws stones at
> > his house. ... He that hath a body made of glass must not throw stones at
> > another. [John Ray, "Handbook of Proverbs," 1670]
> >
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