wants and needs

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

co doi

Something I posted to another list (tesol-l) which I thought you might find
interesting. I hope

mi cu nitcu la feraris. le nu se djica ninmu

is grammatical!  (it is not, I hasten to add, a statement of my own
feelings about cars and/or women) If not, can someone please correct it,
and I'll post the erratum to tesol-l.

co'o mi'e robin
============================================================================
========
>
> At 12:40 18/12/97 +0900, you wrote:
> >Robin wrote;
> >
> >>A need is
> >>something which is a pre-condition of a want
> >
> >This is rather neat, but doesn't really reflect the words' usage.  For
> >example:  I want a Ferrari.  I'm unlikely to encounter anyone aside from
> >the manufacturers who might acknowledge that I need a Ferrari.  Certainly
> >not my bank manager.  I even agree myself that I don't need a Ferrari,
> >but it would be nice.  My 'want' seems to exist independently of 'need'.
> >What you write is all very well, but in practice there is considerable
> >indistinction between the two terms.
> >
> >Regards
> >
> >Ken
>
> Good point about usage - this is one of the dilemmas of semantics, I think.
>  From one point of view the meaning of a word is what it logically implies,
> from the other, it is the way the word is used (early and late
> Wittgenstein, to oversimplify somewhat).  What I think the word "need"
> logically implies is:
>
> 1) there is something that the speaker wants
> 2) the "need" is a necessary (but not always sufficient) condition for 1).
>
> In other words, if you don't fulfill the need, you can't have the want.
> This can be applied even to "primary needs" (e.g. food), the want in
> question here being "to stay alive".  Someone about to commit suicide would
> not worry that there was no food in the fridge, for example.
>         On the other hand, if we look at the way "need" is used in
practice, it
> often seems to mean "a strong want" or "a justified want".  Where it
> retains the instrumental sense, the "want" involved is often extremely
> vague and/or of dubious relation to the need.
>         As linguists (and language teachers, of course) I think we need
to be
> aware of both aspects of meaning.  Sometimes one aspect takes priority, as
> in teaching idiomatic usage, or in analysing politics.
>
> Incidentally, in Lojban (the constructed language I mentioned in a previous
> posting) the definition of "need" is as follows:
>
> >nitcu [ tcu ] need
> >
> >x1 needs/requires/is dependent on/[wants] necessity x2 for
> purpose/action/stage of >process x3
>
> Here the place-structure of "nitcu" requires a purpose (or want) for which
> you need the thing in question, so you could say, for example,
>
> mi cu         nitcu la      feraris. le     nu      se         djica  ninmu
> I  [function] need [article]Ferrari[article][event] ["passive"]desire women
> I need a Ferrari in order to be desired by women.
>
> I could also say simply "mi cu nitcu la porc.", but this would
> automatically invite the response "cu nitcu ko'a ma" (need it (for) what?).
>
> Best wishes,
>                 Robin
>
> P.S. Real gluttons for punishment on the need/want subject may care to look
> at my essay "How to get an 'ought' from an 'is'".
> <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309/ought.html>