tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 24 08:13:08 1995
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: Bucket of tongues
>Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 12:47:11 -0500
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "A.Appleyard" <[email protected]>
>"Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]> wrote (Subject: Re: Bucket of
>tongues):-
>> My point was that in, say, Hebrew, there really is no really natural way to
>say "the amount" without saying "a cup full of sugar". I suppose you can say
>"a filling of a cup of sugar", but that would sound a little archaic in
>Hebrew. I mean that you don't really *need* a phrase for amount and not
>container: you can get by without it. ~mark
> You can get by with this ambiguity between container and contents: you can
>get by with many ambiguities and other inconveniences both in linguistics and
>elsewhere (e.g. Finnish has a noun plural, but yet in Finnish "with his wife"
>and "with his wives" are identical: this is a stock inspiration of homour in
>Finland); but some time someone will change the rules and eliminate the
>inconvenience. E.g. a loaded troopship is one thing; the (amount of troops
>that would fit in a troopship) without a troopship to transport them in, is
>another thing, in the urgency of war.
But actual practice demonstrates that you *can* get away with the
ambiguity. Real live honest-to-Kahless languages are out there wherein the
normal, common way to say "bucketful of tongues" is "a bucket filled with
tongues" and they really and truly have *not* fallen apart and died
horrible screaming deaths because they lack something English has.
Really. They somehow manage. I could easily envision saying "I have a cup
filled with sugar but no cup" or "I have a ship filled with troops but no
ship" for the situation you're talking about. Sound illogical and
nonsensical? Maybe; but very very natural in some languages. English need
not be the measure of all things; just because it sounds weird in English
doesn't mean it can't be right idiomatically in others
~mark