Re: THEORY: Re : Universal Translation Language

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 03/06/99 03:09:11  , Ed a =E9crit :

> Just to clarify what was probably opaque, there's an old joke where
>  Tonto and The Lone Ranger are surrounded by hostile Indians.  The Lone
>  Ranger says, "We're in trouble now, Tonto!" and Tonto says, "who's
>  'we', white man?"  Or maybe it was "paleface"?  In any case, at least
>  among some of my friends, it's become a catch-phrase which indicates
>  that somebody is taking solidarity for granted. :)
>=20
i got it ! :-) one of my favourites. that's why i mentioned "peau-rouge"=20
(red-skin in french).
=20
>  In any case, I'm afraid I cannot see that nouns carry implied
>  existential predications, except inasmuch as they are inherently part
>  of a linguistic system in which they would be used in such contexts.
>=20
this is an interesting viewpoint. i always consider that "lonely"=20
substantives are part of implied 2-term, minimal utterances (? "=E9nonc=E9s=20
minimaux =E0 deux termes") whether non-active (equative, attributive,=20
situative, existential or descriptive) or active.

>  The difference between nouns which signify qualities and adjectives
>  which signify qualities is "grammatical", but then I hold to the
>  theory that all grammar involves meaning, so it would be more precise
>  to say that "beauty" denotes (as a noun) a bounded region in the
>  conceptual space of aesthetic qualities, whereas "beautiful" denotes
>  (as an adjective) an unspecified thing, but adds that that specified
>  thing possesses aesthetic qualities (the same ones directly denoted by
>   "beauty").
i don't know much about that, but what i wrote is that i do not regard=20
attributive as grammatically adjective per se, nor adjective as epithete=20
substantive per se. i'm not quite a white man in that respect :-).

  Since the thing denoted by "beautiful" is unspecified, it
>  must generally appear along with another word, which can fill in the
>  gap which its lack of specificity leaves.
i think this is the very definition of attributive as opposed to substantive=
.=20
personal verbs, genitive and adverbs behave like that at their respective Po=
S=20
levels. am i wrong here ?

mathias