Re: CHAT: programming langs

Ed Heil wrote:

<snip>

>When I say I'm not convinced of the reality of the primitives, I mean
>that:
>
>I don't think that they are by any means the "lowest level" of
>interpretation one can reach.  They may be the lowest level one can
>reach *linguistically*, and therefore be bare minima for *purposes of
>translation* (which is conducted purely in language), but language and
>meaning must relate to the rest of human life by some mechanism.  That
>means that there must be some mechanism for "interpreting"
>Wierzbickian primitives in terms of body, memory, experience of time,
>space, and all the rest of human experience.
<snip>

    Tell me about it! As a Speech-Language Pathologist, I struggle
with these very mechanisms every day! Kids can't seem to be able
to acquire vocabulary? In which language (how many are they
trying to speak?); which of the many cognitive skills are not working
optimally and how bad is what affected;can they even  _concentrate_
more than 10 seconds at a time? Not to mention traumas, cultural
problems, and a whole bunch of things I haven't mentioned!
No offense meant to linguists or linguistic theories.
It's just that, out in the field, sometimes getting to the level of
semantics,
universal or otherwise, can be a big achievement!

Dan Sulani

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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.