On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:36, Darcy James Argue wrote: > On 10 Feb 2005, at 12:26 AM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > On 10 Feb 2005 at 0:09, Darcy James Argue wrote: > >> > >> No, it absolutely does. Let me try one last time: > >> > >> "Dog bites man." > >> > >> "Man bites dog." > >> > >> What's the difference? Same three words. Different meaning. What > >> accounts for the difference? > > > > The fact that you've switched two nouns within precisely the same > > grammatical structure. > > Well, yes. So, you are agreeing with what I wrote below: > > >> Grammar. Grammar controls meaning.
No, grammar *enables* meaning. The switch you are making is a switch of meaning by changing the words. You've done nothing to change the *grammar*, thus grammar is not part of the message you're trying to convey, just the substrate on which the message is carried. > You wrote: > > > And you're not changing the grammar > > Uh, never said I was. Then grammar is *not* part of the message, and thus, not significant to the meaning of the message (though a necessary prerequisite for there to be any possibility of conveying meaning in the first place). > > -- you're just exchanging one > > noun for another in constructions that are grammatically identical. > > Yes, I am exchanging subject and object -- that's a grammatical > change. > The content -- the words themselves -- are the same. No, the grammatical construction remains the same. You are manipulating the content, not the structure. > > In other words, you've changed the content while retaining the same > > grammatical structure. > > Uh, yes. So you're agreeing with me that it's the grammatical > structure, and not the content alone, that determines meaning -- > right? No, I'm not agreeing with you at all. Your example does not demonstrate anything about grammatical structure, since your two examples are structurally indistinguishable. It is only at the level of denotative meaning that there is any difference, at the message level, not at the grammatical level. > > Congratulations! You've just made my point! > > David, you wrote, earlier today, that "grammar has no signficance in > the *meaning* of any particular speech or written utterance." And that's exactly what your example shows -- the same grammatical structure can convey two entirely different meanings. Thus, the grammatical structure itself is not a controlling aspect of the communication -- it is the words itself that control the meaning. And that's what I've been arguing about music, that the foreground elements, not the background structural system, are the only non- trivial (i.e., significant) part of the communication. > I don't think anything I said supports that point. Moreover, I don't > think anything *you* said supports that point. Then we are at loggerheads and have nothing more to say to each other. If you can't understand why your example does not show grammar altering meaning, then there is nothing further that we can say to each other! -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
