Re: THEORY: Browsing at Borders Public Library

On Sun, 10 Oct 1999, Ed Heil wrote:

>
> Well, the thing with her "definition language" is that, darn it, it's
> *ENGLISH*..  It's a very restricted English, and that makes it useful
> for its intended purposes, but it *IS ENGLISH.*  And she is *doing*
> all the exotic things that Langacker & Lakoff & Fauconnier & co like
> to talk about with her definitions, and it is that which enables her
> to write such wonderfully good definitions, but she doesn't seem to
> realize it. :)
I think you're supposed the understand the keywords in a very
restricted sense - after all the C++ keyword 'class' has very
little to do with English class distinctions, too. I think that
if you'd use arbitrary symbols for her key concepts, or Chinese
characters, it would work just as well (for people with the
necessary dedication to memorize the symbols).

>
> But have you any idea what Denden "key words" might be? :)
>
I once tried, but I didn't get very far... It's far more difficult
than it looks like, to do it rigorously, really.

> (BTW, it wasn't the book you mentioned... I believe it was
> _Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words_)
>
She's been doing a lot of work, it appears, Amazon has lots of titles.
I think I'll be going to the library very soon!

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt