Latin, the Enlightenment, and science
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From: Joachim Pense on 28 Dec 2009 06:58 Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang): > > One can arbitrarily translate scientific thought, it's not poetry, > > from one Language to another. > > So naive. > > It's an axiom of modern linguistics (and it has never been disproved) > that anything that can be said in any one language can also be said in > any other language -- you may need to introduce new vocabulary to > cover new concepts and realia (but the concepts can be explained with > paraphrases, just as is done in both philosophy and science), but > that's a trivial matter. Of course an _axiom_ is a sentence that is fundamental for a theoretical system (like modern linguistics). But if any axiom (and the theory building on it) can be applied to any real phenomenon (like actual languages), that needs evidence. So your statement that it's an axiom doesn't say much except that modern linguistics is only applicable to those languages for which the axiom holds. It's the side remark that it has never been disproved that is the actual meat of your argument. Joachim
From: António Marques on 28 Dec 2009 07:02 Peter T. Daniels wrote (27-12-2009 21:23): > On Dec 27, 3:50 pm, garabik-news-2005...(a)kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk > wrote: >> In sci.lang Peter T. Daniels<gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> >>> On Dec 26, 12:57 pm, garabik-news-2005...(a)kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk >>> wrote: >>>> In sci.lang Peter T. Daniels<gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> >>>>> Didn't you learn in science that definition by enumeration is >>>>> unacceptable? >> >>>> On the contrary, in mathematics, definition by enumerating axioms >>>> is THE acceptable way (granted, you probably did not mean _this_)... >> >>> I meant listing all the examples you know of, and not mentioning >>> anything similar that might, but doesn't, fit the pattern. >> >> I know. It depends on to what extent you consider terminology to make part >> of a science discipline. E.g., let me see... in geography, you might define >> Earth continents by, well, enumerating them. > > Is "continent" a technical term in geography? It is in geology, but not at all with the geographical meaning, and not defined by enumeration (e.g. 'Siberia' is a continent since it fits some criteria).
From: António Marques on 28 Dec 2009 07:18 chazwin wrote (28-12-2009 10:36): > The question then is; does the French Academy have the right to > standardise the language? For all my often expressed dislike of it, the AF doesn't have a fourth of the pretensions you attribute to it.
From: António Marques on 28 Dec 2009 07:21 chazwin wrote (28-12-2009 10:11): > On Dec 26, 10:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels"<gramma...(a)verizon.net> wrote: >> It's an axiom of modern linguistics (and it has never been disproved) >> that anything that can be said in any one language can also be said in >> any other language -- you may need to introduce new vocabulary to cover >> new concepts and realia (but the concepts can be explained with >> paraphrases, just as is done in both philosophy and science), but >> that's a trivial matter. > > Another axiom of modern linguistics that that there never is any complete > translation between two instances of the same statement. This is true > even across the same language. If you copy and paste this posting to > another forum, another person will react to it in a different way and > take a different meaning from it. Then clearly that's not a question of language per se.
From: Peter T. Daniels on 28 Dec 2009 07:29
On Dec 28, 5:01 am, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:40:47 +1300, PaulJK > <paul.kr...(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote in > <news:hh9nbf$ejq$1(a)news.eternal-september.org> in > sci.math,sci.physics,sci.lang,alt.usage.english,alt.philosophy: > > > Peter T. Daniels wrote: > >> On Dec 27, 3:49 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...(a)csuohio.edu> wrote: > > [...] > > >>> True, though some linguists would argue that the [ ]~[ ] > >>> distinction still isn't phonemic, since the distribution is > >>> predictable (albeit the conditioning isn't phonological). > > [...] > > >> Whatever you recently did to "fix" your encoding has > >> resulted in blank spaces where you typed funny letters. > > No, it's posted with Content-Type: text/plain; > > charset="iso-8859-1" I don't think the problem was caused > > by his last mod farther down the list of formats. > > It's almost certainly a problem with Google Groups. If > Peter would break down and get a decent news client, he'd > not have the problem. Yet somehow Google Groups managed to show the letters a few minutes later. None of the newsgroup-snobs has ever explained what's _wrong_ with google groups. Just as the internet snobs never used to explain what was wrong with AOL. (I think it was nice of them to be constantly sending free blank diskettes to people.) |