Glokaja kuzdra shteko budlanula bokra

[Alexey I. Fuchs]

> Dear Seelangers,
> 
> I'd like to point out (and agree with one of the participants of the
> discussion, Robert Orr) that sentences of this kind have a meaning, and not
> only a grammatical one. One of the possible semantic interpretations of
> this phrase can be found in Boris Gasparov's wonderful book "Jazyk.
> Pamjat'. Obraz" (Moscow 1996), pp. 94-96.

I tend to disagree with that. Once I puzzled myself trying to make up a
word that would have no meaning whatsoever. It turned out to be a
non-trivial task, for anything I would come up with had, as you say,
semantic aura for me. The word "shteko," for example, invariably stack to
"shteker," and I imagined a sinister creature lifting up the poor "bokr"
(or, rather, "bokyor?") on two sharpened fork-like fingers. Shteko thus
meant "shtekeropodobno." "Budlanula" means more or less "bodnula", but
phonetic similarity is not a semantic guide. I can bring more examples.

Semantic aura, as I see it, should be classified more or less as a
subjective feeling and dealt with from the aesthetic, rather than
linguistic point of view. Not one word out of the famous phrase (apart
from "i") has specific meaning. "Kuzdra," though imaginable, is nowhere
defined, it is not a russian word, and thus has no meaning as well as
"shteko" and "bokr."

I do not bring arguments of the type "it is not in the dictionary,"
because for me anything that is created according to word generation
traditions (I do not even say "laws") and sounds well for the language can
be considered to be a "legal" word. Scherba's example, however, does not
contain anything naturally generated, not even onomatopaeic creatures or
etymologically traceable roots. It's charm and "intolerable lightness of
being" is in its agreeable sound. It is void of meaning, because anyone
who desires to bestow a meaning upon it, can do it according to his own
connotations and associations, and the fact that it can be translated in
different ways underlines this observation. From my point of view.


					Sincerely,
							Alexey Fuchs

> 
> One could translate Shcherba's example into German in very different ways:
> Die nülzische Kunsche schripfte daldig den Writt
> Die delfige Schrinte wesste nosrig den Mauf
> etc. etc.
> and every sentence would have, for every speaker of German (native or not),
> a different semantic aura: connotations, associations, sound...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>                                 * * *
> 
> Heinrich Pfandl
> Institut fuer Slawistik der Universitaet Graz
> Merangasse 70
> A-8010 GRAZ, Austria.
> Tel.: +43/316/380-2525 oder 2520.
> Fax: +43/316/380-9773.
> mailto:pfandl at kfunigraz.ac.at
> 
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