Re: OFF-TOPIC: Non linguistics books by Chomsky

Staving Danny Wier:
>From: "Steve Cooney" <stevencooney@...>
>
> > In light of this above sentiment, I wonder if the
> > subject of this thread would better be generalized to
> > something like "Changing One's Mind: Good or Bad?" or
> > "Making Corrections: Sign of a Flawed Charachter?"
> >
> > If there are any merits at all for the notion of
> > 'never admitting a mistake' (especially for public
> > figures), then I will leave it to others to claim
> > them.
>
>This idea could apply to things like... designing a conlang! I'd say going
>either extreme is bad.
>
>One extreme would be in being rigid and never being willing to edit or
>improve your own work, even if it makes you look wimpy. I see nothing wrong
>with composing a symphony, and then later in life, 'recomposing' it with
>some improvements, or at least changing a few things because the composer
>feels like it. As long as the composer makes the original version available
>since it might've already drawn a huge fan base which would not approve of
>any changes.
>
>The other extreme (the trap I keep falling into): do something, make a
>statement on dogmatic level about it, then decide I don't like it then start
>over and come out saying I was wrong, this is the way it should be, then
>changing it back to the way it was originally. This is okay with my own
>conlang project, since my ongoing research keeps turning up new stuff, and I
>am trying to conceptualize what the 'language of the angels' (as well as
>other things like how angels play music in just intonation) might be. Bad in
>politics or any time someone is speaking frequently at universities.
I am not the only conlanger who has employed the technique of "Make
creative use of your mistakes." For instance, I once discoverd that I had
created two different words for "name" in Khangaþyagon. On further
reflection, I discovered that "ðekh" is the name considered simply as a
reference to a person or thing, whereas "men" is a name which describes
some important aspect of a person. For example, every wizard has a
"bukhmen", or ritual name, which refers to the act by which he first
realized his magical powers. A more familiar example of the difference is
in the biblical passage, "Simon son of John, you are a happy man, for it
was not flesh and blood that made this known to you, but my Father in
Heaven. You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church." Here
"Simon son of John" is a ðekh, whereas "Peter" is a men.

Pete