Re: linguistics journals

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

>ki'a
>
>.i uesai
>
>.i mi nu'o se gunma lei casnu be di'u
>
>mi'e kolin
>
"ki'a" is a dangerous thing to ask me when it's about one of my hobby
horses!  I'll try to keep this fairly brief, though (zo'o to avoid boring
those who are only interested in the finer points of Lojban semantics).

A lot depends on how you define "thought".  If we leave out the
unconscious, I think we can regard thought as any mental process of which
we have at least some awareness.  This includes what we normally describe
as thinking - thinking in words - but also such non-linguistic thought as
thinking in mathematics, pictures or music.  What I am skeptical about is
the idea that we first think, then put our thoughts into some medium - in
other words I see no evidence for Pinker's "mentalese".  If I am composing
a melody in my head, I don't think of a non-musical form and then translate
it into musical notes; the thought and the music are the same.  I see no
reason why this should be any different from language. As I understand SWH,
language does not constrain thought by restricting the verbal output of a
non-verbal thought - language IS thought.

What, then, of the phenomenon of "searching for words"?  I think our
thought processes often lead us directions which are beyond the language we
have, or at least beyond what we can call to awareness at the time.  For
example,  if amnesia presents me from counting beyond three, I would count
like this: "One, two, three, uh..."  I would be aware that something comes
after three;  I just wouldn't know the word for it.  Similarly, since not
ALL thought is linguistic, we could think something in one mode, but be
unable to "translate" it verbally (for example, try verbally expressing a
melody).  If I speak one of those languages which have only a few colour
terms, I could imagine/remember a colour half way between red and yellow,
but not be able to call it "orange" - the best I could manage would be
"something between red and yellow".  Learning (or inventing) a word for
orange would make (verbally) thinking about orange things a lot easier.  It
is therefore not an unreasonable hypothesis that a language like Lojban
which has four (?) words for specific types of causation would make it
easier to distinguish between them.

>.i mi nu'o se gunma lei casnu be di'u

Does this mean "I can be, but have not as yet been, one of the mass who
discuss this subject"?

co'o mi'e robin


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>