Re: Delexicalization of left & right

Hi!

Arnt Richard Johansen rites:
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, John Vertical wrote:
>
> > Hello List,
> > So I'm planning that one of my languages shall be devoid of the
> > concepts of "left" and "right".
>
> Nice!
>
> > I've thought up a few lexical items which need to be split into
> > right and left variants, but I'd like to ask if you can think of
> > further suggestions.
>
> First, a question: how about cardinal directions? (North, south, east,
> west.) Surely, these concepts must be important to hunter-gatherer
> societies.
And there are definitely natlangs that use such an absolute system, to
a varying degree, and not only hunter-gatherer ones.  When I was in
Taiwan, people I asked in a supermarket would tell me that the milk
was in the east.  I was in a closed building, right, a supermarket, so
I was a bit puzzled.  :-)

I'm not sure, however, to what extent the Chinese language prefers
absolute directions over relative ones.

Further, I read in a newspaper article that it is suspected that the
absolute direction system is easier to handle by humans; IIRC, it was
counted and compared how many mistakes people from different cultures
make with their native system, and the result was that there are fewer
people who fail to master the absolute system that those that fail to
master the relative system.

And it is quite a common phenomenon to mix up left and right, isn't
it?  Anyway, I cannot imagine to internalise an absolute system now --
I'm probably too old.

**Henrik