Re: Aesthetic Language Sense

Matt Pearson wrote:

> No, I know what you mean by "rightness", but it's an elusive concept.
> Curiously, the word for "word" in Tokana is "sot" - very similar to
> the Navajo word!  "Sot" is one of the oldest words in the language
> (i.e. one of the first ones to be invented), and has always felt 'right'
> to me for that particular concept.  Other words which feel right to
> me include "lhai" for "here", "pokot" for "turtle", "ko/ke" for you,
> "mots" for "frog", "koin" for "person", and "suhpa" for "brother".
> I'll be damned if I know where these intuitions come from, though...
Robin Alcott may be as nutty as Margaret Magnus, but (s?)he has an
idea where at least some of these intuitions come from... From the
"gestural" character of articulatory motions.  I like these ideas,
though I can't quite muster the confidence that the author seems to
have in the details of the presentation.

http://www.percep.demon.co.uk/index.htm

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Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
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