Disc: Linguistics & Nominalising Languages

[Dan Moonhawk Alford]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2000 Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com wrote:

> In #11.1927 Moonhawk writes:
>
> >>>>>
> Or "iyeska" in Lakota, meaning "mixed-blood" if you're talking about
> someone's ancestry/culture, "translator" if about language, and "shaman"
> if about the sacred. But they're still talking about the underlying
> process of going between in each case, focusing on dancing not
> dancers. Now it's true you could in some sense recover the noun IF you
> know the context. Often, however, this is not culturally desired except
> for teaching purposes, then dropped.
> <<<<<
>
> How is this different from the different/same meanings of the English word
> "interpretation" (etymologically, 'taking between') when used in the
> contexts of
>      - a multilingual discussion
>      - a dance performance
>      - King Henry II's "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" and the
> assassination of Thomas Becket
> ? We see a unity of meaning in these cases that might well not appear in
> another language. So how is "iyeska" especially relevant to the point
> you're making?

Good Q. Are you claiming that these context-sensitive interpretations of
"interpretation," an abstract conceptual noun, are somehow relevant to the
context-determinitive process of creating the concrete object nouns of my
example?? They seem quite different for me in English, which is above all
a visually oriented language which assists its speakers in focusing on
objects in a Rohrschach reality. I'd have to know more about how you see
them relating.

warm regards, moonhawk

dalford at haywire.csuhayward.edu
<http://www.sunflower.com/~dewatson/alford.htm>

"I don't need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines!"
                                                   -- Roy, Mystery Men