Re: Negation?

John Cowan wrote:
>
> Sally Caves wrote:
>
> > Also: how does a no-less language work in dangerous situations?  How
> > can Suzette Hayden Elgin make a language where there is no "no" for
> > women?
> > When the word "no" is such a staple part of feminist rhetoric recently?
> > <G>
>
> To summarize, Laadan has evidential particles that show "how you know".
Yes, so I see (said she, poring over her new LAadan grammar).

> With the exception of "self-evident" (on which people can obviously
> disagree) most of them make flat contradictions not so much impossible
> as pointless:
>
> A:      It's hot today (I perceive)
> B:      It's not hot today. (I perceive)
>
> is not a true contradiction, since each is simply stating his or
> her perception.  The true contradiction would be "You don't
> perceive that" which is self-evidently (:-)) nonsense.
Wnat do followers (and critics) of LAadan think of this system?
She borrows it, doesn't she, from certain native American languages?
In her introduction she says: "LAadan is a language constructed by
a woman, for women, for the specific purpose of expressing the
perceptions of women."  But it strikes me that so many women already
incorporate evidential markers in their discourse--in order to avoid
flatly contradicting someone.  "I don't think that's right, actually,"
as opposed to "You're dead wrong."  Is the point to offer a NEW way for
women to speak (so as to circumvent binary thinking and denunciation)
or to strengthen what she perceives to be women's traits?  I distrust
this kind of gendered pigeonholing.  Why shouldn't LAadan be a
language for men AND women?  Women do live, after all, in the world
of men, and vice versa, and must speak in it.

Sally