Re: vive !

Good to hear from you again. This sounds like a more interesting discussion
than the last one...

responses below:

"L. Manning Vines" wrote:

> But the image in your head is not of tree, but of A tree. I doubt that one
> can imagine (make an image of) tree, by which I mean tree itself. It's true
> that the second fellow might first think of a different tree, but if he
> encounters YOUR imaginary tree he probably won't call it a flower. You
> probably both think of treeness is the same way, or in very similar ways.

This was my point -- when I say "tree," I usually think of the tree in the front
yard of my old home in Orlando. When I say "tree" to you, you probably think of
a specific tree near you or from your past, but certainly not the same tree I'm
thinking of.

Now, if you want to understand how signs get their meaning from their
relationship to other signs, well, you answered the question yourself. You said
the person I'm saying "tree" to wouldn't call it a flower, and you could have
extended that to say that he wouldn't imagine anything I would happen to call a
flower. So part of the meaning of tree is, "not flower." The meaning of the
word tree, then, in practice, doesn't derive from its association with a
specific physical object, but from the fact that it's not a flower and not a
bush and not a shrub and not a vine and so on and so on.

This clarification was needed partly because I wasn't completely clear in the
post you were quoting -- you probably thought I was referring specifically to
the other words in the sentence containing the word "tree." My language inferred
that, yes.

But even then, that's partially true too -- look at these three sentences:

I have a tree in my front yard.
I got a money tree for Christmas.
I've been tracing my family tree for years.

(if I was more creative, I could probably come up with a sentence using the word
"tree" in computer discourse and probably other disciplines as well).

In all three sentences, the word "tree" refers to completely different
referents, referents we can only identify by the words surrounding the word
"tree." So in all three cases, the word "tree" derives its meaning from its
relationship to other words -- or rather signs get their meaning from other
signs.

Your comment about onomatopeia was pretty interesting, but I'm not sure what to
do with it.

Jim

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
Received on Sun Dec 15 09:16:45 2002