naming a language

[Paul Hopper]

Bloomfield dubbed the kinds of judgmental observations that Funknetters have been making about the alleged "mispronunciation" of names "tertiary responses", and reckoned them as part of the linguist's accounting of facts about a language. This being so, surely our attitude toward our discussion should be one of stern objectivity rather than amusement?

Or of course it could just be that we're having fun for a change.


- Paul

  



> I am amused by the general prescriptive feeling that has been evident in 
> this discussion from the use of phrases like 'irritating errors'. It's 
> language change and language use, people! Aren't functional linguists
> supposed to like this sort of thing? Claire
> 
> 
> ------------- Claire Bowern Department of Linguistics Yale University
> 
> 


-- 
Prof. Dr. Paul J. Hopper
Senior Fellow
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Albertstr. 19
D-79104 Freiburg
and
Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213