Re: Word Order in typology

From:    Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
> On Oct 17, 2004, at 9:06 AM, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > (Baker is also interesting in being the only linguist I know of who
> > dedicates all his technical books to Jesus Christ - to the extent
> > that he even has a section at the end of _The Polysynthesis
> > Parameter_ explaining how God invented polysynthesis, and quotes
> > chapter and verse to boot. Not that this is *wrong*, per se, but
> > it's not falsifiable, unscientific, and it can be a little
> > out-weirding...)
>
> So, how does he do it? :)
Well, in that section, he's a little cagey about whether the
Judeo-Christian is the *right* theological explanation for linguistic
diversity, though clearly he spends most of his discussion (with the
token mention of the Popol Vuh) on it:  there are 25 Bible citations,
mostly from Genesis.  After quoting most of the passage in Genesis about
the Tower of Babel, he says "However the historical details of this story
are to be taken, its basic point is clear:  linguistic diversity results
from a direct act of God".  So, presumably, it all goes back to "Babel",
whatever we take that to mean.

I note that he interprets John 1:1 ("In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God") as describing God's
inherently linguistic nature, but this is IMHO a bad example of exegesis.
The Greek word for "word", _logos_, had a whole raft of meanings that the
English doesn't capture, such as "speech", "argument", "resolution",
"condition", "command", "right of speech", "language", "narrative",
"oration", "opinion", "reason", "ground", "plea", "account", "proportion",
"analogy"... and of course, itself as an untranslatable primitive. (Running
each of those meanings through the verse is an interesting exercise.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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