Fragments

Scattered notes on linguistics

17.10.2019

Random thoughts about semantics: to “write” an email means to hit certain keys on a keyboard and cause a copy of the text to be stored as a draft in an email application. With phrasal verbs we talk about “check in code”, “check in at a venue”, “check in on someone“, the meaning is only fully clear when both the situation and the implied actions are described.

18.04.2020

Towards the edges of common vocabulary the nature of semantics shifts from lexical to cultural references, consider words such as ‘milquetoast’, ‘pollyannish’, ‘kafkaesque’ – at that point reconstructing the transmission of meaning is almost out of the hands of lexicographers. A similar gradient applies to domain knowledge: the word ‘culvert’ or ‘semiconductor’ in a world without those things would have no meaning, they are phonological and morphologically plausible non-words. In a world where they do exist, one-to-one, you only have to map the concepts onto or shoehorn them into plausible forms. How much of a lexical document is re-describing a world?

22.04.2020

“How far away is this place?”
?“50 kilometres per hour.”

28.01.2021

Steps of conversational speech or self-narrative

• Organising notions into thought
• Finding nuanced lexical terms for concepts
• Preparing words for morphosyntax
• Feeling assured that the “putting-together” is correct and natural
• Phonological planning to “drape” syllables over an utterance