Sunday, April 09, 2006

evidentiaries



The English language needs some way of marking clauses with evidentiaries.

I'm not sure how other languages use them, but I want to be able to mark my hypothetical stories, easily, within the flow of conversation, and make assertions for the sole purpose of discussing the validity of my assertion. I want people to know when I’m using info from a highly regarded statistical report, or from personal experience. There are many more things I want from my language. I want to be able to express all things, and I don't think English is capable of that.

Does this disprove "Wittgenstein's meaning is use" explanation? I certainly have meaning that is not expressed clearly, efficiently and sometimes is completely impossible to transmit to anyone! (If I had an appropriate marker for the above question, it would mean something like, "I haven't read wittgenstein in the last 6 years, and don't remember much other than this quote, but I invite any comments on the matter you have."

More info to follow after talking with my learned linguist friend at Berkeley.

Random-by-the-way: Missouri is the "show me state." One theory is that this is because they are not blinded by political rhetoric. Maybe these people would be persuaded by political discourse if it included evidentiaries that reveal when someone is speaking in opinions and generalities rather than on supported data. I think we should have an evidentiary to show when something is a generally-accepted-bi-partisan-multi-cultural fact.

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