🚀 go-pugleaf

John Lyons's Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (1968, Cambridge University
Press) contains a very interesting discussion (pp.56-9) about the
"colour-terms".


Gary Shannon wrote:

> Stefan M�hlbacher wrote in message <374476c8.0@news.kabsi.at>...
> >Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} schrieb in Nachricht
> ><7f3e0spise.fsf@faith.csis.hku.hk>...
>
> >In this case a global symbol consists of a sequence of contexts (global,
> >language) where the last entry (english) is unique within the resulting
> >context .
> >
> >When using global symbols it is possible to define relational facts like
> >this:
> >
> >global_relation_isa(global_language, global_language_english)
> >
> One problem with this idea is that different cultures do not always place
> the dividing lines that seperate one concept from another in the same place.
> Suppose, for example, that most languages have a word for the color "red".
> It is quite possible that some other language might place the dividing line
> between red and orange in a different place along the spectrum and have
> words for red-orange, and yellow-orange, but no word at all for what we
> would call "pure" red.
>
> This is a simplistic example, but anyone who has mastered more than one
> language can, I'm sure, come up with examples of words in one language that
> have no equivalent at all in another language. "Gem�tlichkeit" comes to mind
> as a word that has no exact English equivalent; only a few words with
> similar meaning.
>
> --Gary.