Re: nomothete
| From: | And Rosta <a.rosta@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 0:38 |
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Sally:
> Can "nomothete" or "Nomothete" mean "name-giver" as well as "lawgiver"?
> Umberto Eco seems to use this term with the latter sense:
>
> "...'out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and
> every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would
call
> them'. The interpretation of the passage is an extremely delicate matter.
> Clearly we are in the presence of a motif, common to other religions and
> mythologies -- that of the nomothete, the name-giver, the creator of
> language."
>
> Search for the Perfect Language, p. 8.
>
> Is Eco using the word incorrectly? I've always understood this to mean
> nomos + theticos. Is there any context outside of Eco's use of it here
> where this word means giving the name?
Not as far as I know. Is there some kind of abstruse pun going on,
between nomothete and onomatothete? Are these words for "law" and "name"
cognate? And are Latin lex/legis (law) and Gk lexis/legein (words,
speech, speak) [forgive me if in my haste my inflections err ...]
cognate?
--And.
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