Re: Speaker Relative Adjectives

Jim Grossmann wrote:
>
[...]
>
> Finally, how about adjectives that convey value judgements?    When an
> adjective is used to convey the speaker's opinion of something, will that
> same adjective always express an opinion about the speaker, and if so, whose
> opinion?   For instance, will there be a speaker-relative adjective that
> means "more loathesome than an angelic speaker," and also "less loathesome
> than a loathesome speaker?"
>
> How about "either more loathesome than an average slob or more angelic than
> an average slob?"
>
> IN SUM:   My guess is that your scheme will work with only a limited number
> of adjectives at best.   Also, IMO, you need to think about what contexts
> will make your speaker-relative adjectives useful.   You may need to do a
> little con-culturing here.
>
> Jim

Perhaps the conculture, or conpoliticalscenario, might be a kind of
cultural relativism gone crazy? Then people might indeed need a word for
"blue, relative to my perception, but without implying that I'm
establishing some norms for what blue is for someone else."

Or there again perhaps not.

I'd reinforce Jim's comments (in the clipped bit)about the problems with
the extreme nature of children's perceptions. My 3 year-old son often
says that
some 7 or 8year old child is "very big, isn't he?" Young children's
capacity
to express shades of meaning in temporal, physical or other areas is
limited ("I've never had ice-cream," he'll say to me, meaning that he
hasn't had any since he stuffed himself sick on it just the day
before).

Lastly: Rhialto was right to point out the limitations of my Arabic
example. As I noted myself, it doesn't have the generic nature that
Joe's advocating. I'd be willing to bet that no natlang does.

        Shaul