Re: USAGE: Speak-Say-Tell

Geoff Horswood wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I was thinking about the English words "speak", "say", "tell" (and "talk"),
>and trying to quantify the exact difference between them.
>
>Specifically, I was wondering whether all the words were strictly necessary
>in a language, or whether you could postulate a language with only one word
>meaning speak, say, tell or talk, depending on context.  How realistic is
>this?
>
>(Kazakh has 3 words: /ajtu/ to speak or tell, /deu/ to say, and /s2jleu/ to
>talk, plus the compound /djep ajtu/.)
>What about other natlangs?
>
>
'speak' and 'talk' can have two meanings, depending on their transitivity.

a) (intransitive) to say something
b) (transitive) To say something in manner X

In my idiolect, only 'speak' can take a language as its direct object.
Neither of them expect elaboration.
eg.. I speak French, I speak to him, I talk nonsense

'say' and 'tell' are intransitive and transitive respectively.  However,
these expect you to explain exactly *what* you said.

I think they would be the best way to quantify it.  I think generally
most languages collapse one or two of them into the other.  Collapsing
them all would be fairly simple, and I don't think it would cause too
much of a catastrophe.

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