From: Daniel Riaņo (danielrr@retemail.es)
Date: Sat Jan 13 2001 - 06:08:36 EST
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Rolf Furuli wrote:
>I would say that meaning is neither found in the individual word nor in the
>context, but meaning is connected with concepts in the minds of living
>people. This meaning can be communicated because a group of people has the
>same presupposition pool and the same linguistic conventions. So the
>letters and sounds have no intrinsic meaning, they are just codes, and the
>context (written or spoken) neither produces meaning, it just has the role
>of a pointing finger. But the meaning is connected with the concepts in the
>minds which are signalled by the words. Many substantives signals just one
>concept, others signal two, and a few more than two concepts.
[a large part of this interesting answer snipped above and below]
Many thanks to Rolf for this thoughtful answer. I can't say I
share all the terms and path of the reasoning, but I am not sure if
part at least of the divergence isn't just a matter of terminology:
If one word (in your sense of "word") signal one concept in the mind
of both the speaker and the addressee, Can't we say that such word do
possess meaning (within a collectivity). Or, to take another code: a
round-shaped traffic signal of certain dimensions placed on the spot
by an authorised institution, containing a certain combination of
figures and colours, doesn't certainly have a meaning? (even if it
points to a concept in the people's mind; maybe a complex concept
that didn't exist previous to their knowledge of the traffic signal
value?
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Daniel Riaņo Rufilanchas Madrid, Espaņa--- B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek You are currently subscribed to b-greek as: [jwrobie@mindspring.com] To unsubscribe, forward this message to leave-b-greek-327Q@franklin.oit.unc.edu To subscribe, send a message to subscribe-b-greek@franklin.oit.unc.edu
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