Re: Sawilan Constructions

From Http://Members.Aol.Com/Lassailly/Tunuframe.Html wrote:

[lots of explanation and examples from Mathias snipped]

I'm sorry.  I tried to respond point by point to your explanations
here but it just ended up being me repeating "I don't get it" over and
over again.  I'm afraid I just do not seem to be able to follow your
criticisms, though from what I understand of it I find your view of
semantics reasonable and insightful -- I just don't see how it negates
F & T's ideas.  I apologize.  You said you would respond "aggressively
and stupidly" to this paper but I seem to be the stupid one because I
just don't see what you're talking about even though you have tried to
kindly and carefully explain it to me.

> they pinpoint a few examples and don't even try
> to list them to see how many them come up with.
Well, this is only one paper; they've done quite a bit more work on
the topic.

For more of their work, please take a look at:

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~mturn/WWW/blending.html

Though I must warn you that some of the papers that page links to
have circles and arrows.

> >  Ah, I think I am starting to understand.  You are, I think, saying
> >  that Turner and Fauconnier's analysis is too open-ended, and ignores
> >  the idea of a fairly small core of abstract action-patterns, with
> >  their activities and roles, which undergird all verbs?  Is that
> >  correct, or close to it?
> >
>
> yes.
You know, I'm not sure that F&T would object to that claim at all.
In one of Turner's books, he makes a very roughly similar claim.

> >  > the only condition to map this out is to look and dream and stop
> >  > intellectualize what billions of people understand instinctively.
> >
> >  I think trying to attain a clear description of what it is that
> >  people do instinctively is precisely what they want to do.  Asking
> >  them not to describe it is a little beside the point -- like asking a
> >  painter not to paint the flowers, but instead to stop and smell them.
> >  A useful thing, but a painter wants to paint, no matter how nice they
> >  smell.
> >
>
> they don't describe anything.
> they just pinpoint obvious possible semantic roles
> of vocabulary taken as predicate and pertaining
> to different cognitive fields.
> any all-noun-for-fun conlanger can do that.
Again, the paper I pointed you to had a specific point: it was
intended to refute a simplistic view of semantics, which would suggest
that when you put two words together the meaning of the compound is a
trivial function of the meanings of the two words.  They want to say
that on the contrary, the processes by which meanings of compound
words involve non-trivial, context-dependent processes of meaning
construction.  They happen to be particularly interested in
non-trivial processes of meaning construction, as am I.  The question
of whether or not there are a limited set of basic action-frames with
associated roles does not, I think, particularly concern them in this
paper.

Ed Heil
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