Sorry not sure what you mean; lacking in what capacity? — Janus
Yes, and I think his use of "theory" in that context is therefore inapt — Janus
So then, do you want to say that a malapropism is merely "unconventional" and not a trangression against any actual rule? — Janus
He also talks at length about the inherent limitations of general accounts. — creativesoul
They're not in themselves important to Davidson's argument, near as I can tell. — Srap Tasmaner
It does not add anything to this thesis to say that if the theory does correctly describe the competence of an interpreter, some mechanism in the interpreter must correspond to the theory
Just because some rules have been memorized (stored in long term memory rather than working memory) does not mean that you no longer know how to use the rules. It doesn't make much sense to say that you can follow rules without knowing them. Did you know that 2+2=4 even before I just mentioned it? In other words, does knowing mean that the information is only present in working memory rather than in long-term memory that can be recalled to working memory when it is needed? If you didn't know something, then how can you recall it to use it in your working memory? Knowing entails recalling information, not having to learn it.Agreed pretty much all around, except I'd be more inclined to say "following the rules", or if I wanted to be really careful, "acting in accordance with the rules", rather than "knowing the rules". An awful lot of the linguistic machinery we operate is below our level of awareness -- some of it might always be, but at least in use it is: we don't consciously work out what the appropriate rule is and then consciously refer to it as we apply it and check that we've applied it properly. We can do a lot of that sort of thing, and will when there's trouble, but mostly the rules take care of themselves without us paying them any attention. Not once we've learned them, at any rate, and though learning requires a lot of conscious effort, it eventually results in reliable habits that require no awareness. — Srap Tasmaner
How would the T sentence method work for translating meaningful sentences that are not truth apt?
For example...
"Don't be scared of the virus." "Don't let the virus dominate your life."
Are these out of reach, so to speak, beyond the 'domain' of application? — creativesoul
But a malapropism is more like a game of chess in which one player moves a pawn backwards... despite the rule saying they must move forwards! — Banno
Exactly. That is why the example of using a meat tenderizer to hammer a nail works here. The sound and shape of the word is similar to the sound and shape of the word that is meant, just as a hammer and meat tenderizer are shaped similarly and used similarly, but not exactly - hence the distinction. While you can accomplish your goal by using a similarly shaped word, it doesn't accomplish it in the most efficient means possible. The mistake and it's subsequent understanding by others is something that should be predicted to happen in pattern-recognizing systems like your brain.No they aren't. The substituted word is almost always the same part of speech, even the same number of syllables with the same prosody, and the resulting expression is grammatical.
The analogy in chess would be a move that, while legal, "doesn't make sense" according to some view of chess, but works for some specific reason. — Srap Tasmaner
"Soup latrine", since it is a malapropism, does not occur elsewhere in the object language, or at least does not occur with any where near the of "soup tureen". Empirically it is not a good candidate for the metalanguage interpretation. — Banno
Then we must be talking past each other. A malapropism is the mistaken use of a similarly shaped, or sounding word.I don't think your mixture of metaphors here is helping. Well, I guess I should only speak for myself: it's not helping me. — Janus
Now suppose that someone were to say much the same about language as we say about the rules of chess; that there are a set of... semantic and syntactic criteria... that explicate the 'movements' allowed in making use of a language, allowing us to proceed from a given utterance. A piece of apparent language - a 'move' - is presented which goes against those criteria. Now if the supposition were correct, we would be in the same position as in the game of chess, left unable to proceed. — Banno
The thing about chess and language is that you have to have someone else to play with, and the rules have to be established before the game, or else someone could be cheating, or lying, depending on the game. If that is how you can move a pawn, then I need to know that before the game starts. If "flamenco" is what you mean when you say "flamingo", I need to know that before communication starts.You are playing chess, — Banno
When setting up the board put the knights where you'd normally put the rooks, and put the rooks where you'd normally put the knights, and then play the game according to initial postion rather than according to the look of the pieces. You'd have a piece that looks like a knight but behaves like a rook. That's pretty much what a malapropism is: it's a mishap about appearance, and it works because of the arbitrariness of the sign. As long as your knight-looking piece moves like a rook, it's a rook in all but looks. The biggest challenge is habit: if you're used to playing chess with a knight-looking knight and rook-looking rook, you might confuse the pieces based on habit. That's an additional challange, but it doesn't really ruin the game. Same rules and same pieces; just a mismatch in the "lexicon". — Dawnstorm
I think that you are muddying the waters bringing awareness into this. If it happened "below our level of awareness" (whatever that means) then how are you able report it? And what does "our" entail, as in "below the level of our awareness"?In fact there's plenty of evidence, near as I can tell, that top-down constraints play a huge role here -- the phrasal, sentence, and conversational context. We take a speaker to have uttered a word that would make sense in the context as we understand it, rather than whatever mispronunciation they actually produced. All of that "correction" happens below the level of our awareness. — Srap Tasmaner
The comparison of sounds, and their similarities and differences, happens within consciousness. — Harry Hindu
A piece of apparent language - a 'move' - is presented which goes against those criteria. — Banno
so you could also just think of this as a variant. — Srap Tasmaner
What are the rules for what can or cannot be thought of (understood, interpreted) as a variant? — unenlightened
It starts to look like even chess cannot be specified exactly; — unenlightened
I seem to remember endless negotiations about the fine details of grandmaster matches - between Fischer & Spassky and Fischer and Karpov. Making up the rules? — unenlightened
I have a mouth; caves have mouths, rivers have mouths. We all know what a mouth is - what is a mouth? — unenlightened
About chess: I find the comparison hard. — Dawnstorm
Then we must be talking past each other. A malapropism is the mistaken use of a similarly shaped, or sounding word. — Harry Hindu
Threads such as this tend to squabbling minutia towards their demise. — Banno
Someone who grasps the fact that Mrs Malaprop means ‘epithet’ when she says ‘epitaph’ must give ‘epithet’ all the powers ‘epitaph’ has for many other people. Only a full recursive theory can do justice to these powers. These remarks do not depend on supposing Mrs Malaprop will always make this ‘mistake’; once is enough to summon up a passing theory assigning a new role to ‘epitaph’. — p. 262, my underlining
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