In a message dated 12/11/12 2:30:34 PM, [email protected] writes:
> BTW, Cheerskep often rails against "the" meaning of a word, and the > examples > he gives are all nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. These are the four > categories of English words that are open, that easily admit new words. > Three > other categories--prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions--are not open to > new > additions. They are function words and are used to connect words from the > first four groups together in generally comprehensible statements. > > Some sleepy, pre-nap thoughts. All these alleged "categories", "parts of speech", are solely mental concoctions, notional entities, the product of a mind's stipulation. They have no mind-independent status, and even in a mind their notional status is solely a function of stipulation. For trivial openers, you'll find lots of grammarians who will assert there "are" eight parts of speech. A great number of words are "classified" by someone or another in many different "categories". Philosophers of language in ther last century have found yet other "categories" they might argue "deserve" to be called "parts of speech". For example, "indexicals". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "Indexicals are linguistic expressions whose reference shifts from context to context: some paradigm examples are bIb, bhereb, bnowb, btodayb,bheb , bsheb, and bthatb. Two speakers who utter a single sentence that contains an indexical may say different things. For instance, Fred and Wilma say different things when they utter the sentence bI am femaleb." The often-cited adjectival quality "true" can run into rough surf with indexicals. Imagine a man in New York saying, "I am here." Now imagine him standing in New York and pointing at Paris on a big wall map. Now imagine him in New York as a friend asks him, "Where are you now in the travelogue you're writing about your round-the-world trip?" and he answers, "I'm in London." Then he adds, "I am in Rome beginning Thursday." Philosophers can argue over whether to classify certain of his statements as "true" or "false". "Intention" seems to come into it. Uneasiness seeps into the room...
