Re: NATLANG: Colors

David Peterson said:
> Oh, I just remembered one.   One universal (and I'm pretty sure this is a
> universal) is that a language will have *at most* 11 *basic* color terms
That's what they say, alright.

But saying that it's a "linguistic universal" that languages will have at
most 11 basic color terms -- even stipulating the possibility of
adequately operationalizing the concepts of "basic" and "color term" such
that the purported "universal" is not simply a logical consequence of
these definitions -- is a bit like saying that it's an "economic
universal" that no human has a net worth of more than $50 billion.

I would only be inclined to even listen to talk about such an economic
universal if it came with some sort of well-founded reasoning as to what
it is about the economic system that might give rise to such a universal.

I would only be inclined to even listen to talk about such a linguistic
universal if it came with some sort of well-founded reasoning as to what
it is about humans and human language that might give rise to such a
universal. It doesn't, so I'm not.


-- Mark

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