Re: cold logic

[bob@MEGALITH.RATTLESNAKE.COM]

<robin@bilkent.edu.tr> wrote:

    As far as I know, the Lakoff-Johnson model does not overtly
    distinguish between metaphors such as EMOTIONS ARE WARM, which
    follow more-or-less automatically from image-schematic universals,
    and those which have culture-specific preconditions, such as TIME
    IS MONEY (obviously meaningless in a culture which does not have
    money).

Good point.

Interestingly, it might be possible to begin to distangle these using
Anna Wierzbicka's work.  Wierzbicka's thesis, which Lakoff says is
interesting, but with which he disagrees, is that there are a small
number of universal concepts:

    I, you, someone, something, this, say, want, don't want
    (or `no'), feel, think; know, where, good; when, can,
    like, the same,  kind of, after, do, happen, bad, all,
    because, if, two; part, become, imagine, world

Culture specific concepts, such as `soul' and `courage', use these
universal concepts differently in various cultures.

For example, one of three definitions of `soul', using only these
concepts:

    soul (definition 1, often contempory American)
        one of two parts of a person
        one cannot see it
        it is part of another world
        good beings are part of that world
        things are not part of that world
        because of this part a person can be a good person

The research project would be to use Wierzbicka's universals to
determine which metaphors are from image-schematic universals and
which culture-specific preconditions...

                ----------------

Here is more about Wierzbicka's concepts, for those of you who are
interested, from my notes:


    Semantics, Culture, and Cognition:
    Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations

    By Anna Wierzbicka
    1992, Oxford University Press
    ISBN 0-19-507326-6 (pbk)


Wierzbicka gives the following example of a set of dictionary
definitions (`Concise Oxford', 1964):

reprove         = rebuke, chide
rebuke          = reprove, reprimand, censure authoritatively
reprimand       = officially rebuke
censure         = blame, crticise unfavourable, reprove
criticise       = discuss critically, censure

Her argument is that you *can* write dictionary definitions that are
meaningful to an adult foreigner, but that you have to use the universal
concepts, and be careful.

Concepts which she is confident are universal are (page 10):

     I, you, someone, something, this, say, want,
     don't want (or `no'), feel, think

Likely also:

     know, where, good

Others being investigated:

     when, can, like, the same, kind of, after,
     do, happen, bad, all, because, if, two

Maybe also:

     part, become, imagine, world

These fit in a sort of mini-grammar.  Concepts are parts of grammatical
categories:

     nominal:                I, you, someone, something

     determiners:            this, the same

     analogue of adjectives: good, bad

     analogue of verbs:      think, say, want, know

Using English grammatical order, the concepts fit into sentences like
this:

     I think this

     I want this

     You do this

     This happened

     This person did something bad

Here are three definitions of `soul', using only universal concepts:

soul (definition 1, often contempory American)

    one of two parts of a person
    one cannot see it
    it is part of another world
    good beings are part of that world
    things are not part of that world
    because of this part a person can be a good person

soul (definition 2, older as found in Hamlet)

    one of two parts of a person
    one cannot see it
    it is part of another world
    good beings are part of that world
    things are not part of that world
    other people can't know what things happen in that part of a person
    sometimes the person doesn't know what these things are
    these things can be good or bad
    because of this part a person can be a good person

And here is yet another definition, base on usage that seems to make no
reference to another world, as in `he believes in it to the very depths
of his soul'.

soul (definition 3, Wierzbicka calls this a `marginal definition')

    a part of a person
    one cannot see it
    other people can't know what things happen in that part
    sometimes the person doesn't know what these things are
    these things can be good or bad

Then she talks about the quite different yet supposedly `equivalent'
Russian, German, and French concepts of `soul', and also the concepts of
`heart' and `mind'.