Re: OT: Tinkering versus creativity

On 6/26/06, And Rosta <and.rosta@...> wrote:
> 1. The article is unclear about what is meant by "tinkering".
"Tinkering consists of exploring relatively minor variations on known
themes, or subjecting new stimuli to an array of already known
techniques."

Which isn't quite either of the definitions you used...

Of course, "known themes" and "known techniques", within linguistics,
is still a very large area. *clones can be pretty diverse; this would
also encompass all pidgins (incl implausible ones), etc etc.

What it doesn't include is people trying to go in new directions. I
try; I think Kelen does, DP's sign language does (if simply *as*
consignlang), Ithkuil does in its own weird way, etc.

Obviously I'm not indicting tinkering-type creativity; just saying,
well, it doesn't really interest me, because it's not *new*.

- Sai

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