Shave it

RSVPs

“WHICH” & “THAT”

: Xenophilia (Sept. 30, 4:10PM) – “If it has a comma in front of it, use which. if it doesn’t, use that instead”

I find it implausible that proper word selection in this particular case depends on the placement of the comma. Xeno, I must ask for your references on this point. Be specific – title, page and section. Both are relative pronouns. While I used “which” in referring to the noun “anything,” I maintain that either is correct. Also, I might point out that is required that one start a sentence with a capital and end it with a period. Xeno, typically, presumes to (a) correct me on a very questionable grammatical point and then (b) commits a gross grammatical blunder of her own. Typical, as I say.

In respect to the “serenade,” confusion arose in respect to the dates and times of our respective posts which(!) boredom prevents me from presently rehearsing. Yes, I had listened to (part) of your shocking serenade Xeno, but thought, in the context of the sequence of posts from you, Scrotum and me, that you had, in your usual heated hormonal condition, posted another.

While we’re chatting, Xeno, my reference to “Scrotum” is not simply a “childish” prank as you seem to suppose. Rather, it is based on his previous pseudonym, a crude take-off on some Islamic name – “My Balls are Hari” or something like that – and, as you know, the male’s balls are contained in the testicular sack or, more properly, in the SCROTUM. So, with my inimitable sense of humour, I thought I would re-christen him with his new “nom-de-plume.” (It’s common practice to place foreign phrases in quotation marks, Xeno.) Now, of course, he has adopted “Ebert von Something or Other” which I take to be just another occasion for his crypto-Nazi masturbatory fantasies and refuse to change from the graphically descriptive and, I think, metaphorically more accurate, “Scrotum.”

Speaking of the scrotum, Xeno, do you claim any hands-on familiarity with the object? Write back with your observations but do try and avoid your usual heated hormonal rush.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!

THINKING ABOUT LANGUAGE: “DEEP GRAMMAR”

Ordinairily Montrealman does not post consecutively but, on reflecting on the current “which-that” controversy, he wanted to situate it in its larger philosophical context so as to throw further light on the dilemma. That “larger philosophical context” is nothing less than taking a look at (a) the relationship between language and thought, (b) the acquisition, production and comprehension of language and (c) the concept of “deep grammar” and its bearing on the “which-that” controversy.

(a) Language is usually viewed as the medium by means of which one’s thought is conveyed. The view is of a two-step process: one has a thought and then puts it into words, whether spoken or written. But does this view make sense? What, for example, would that pre-linguistic thought – the thought before it was articulated in language – look like? My view is that it wouldn’t look like anything. In other words, thought and language are co-extensive. You can’t have one, as the old song goes, without the other.

(b) Just how the infant – after its first fumbles with parental imitation – acquires grammatical and syntactical language, is still unknown. The philosopher Noam Chomsky thought it might be the result of the possession of a “language gene” but it has never been shown to exist. Similarly with language production. We never repeat our sentences – words yes, sentences no – during our entire lives. The sources of this immense language production remain unknown. Finally, the means by which we comprehend the language production of others remains a mystery. To speak of some mechanical process of “decoding” begs the question of the fuctioning of the process of such “decoding” which must account for the non-mechanical operation of the human intelligence and will.

(c) Whatever its source and manner of functioning, human language acquisition, production and comprehension may be seen as the results of the possession of “deep grammar,” a natural possession of everyone, if not to the same degree. Its operation can be seen in the context of the present “which-that” debate. Mignon Fogarty’s distinction between “restrictive” and “nonrestrictive” clauses is an example of “surface grammar,” one which explicitly formalizes the insights of “deep grammar” which speaks not of the application of formal grammatical rules but rather is language which “scans” or “looks right.” The point, of course, is that “deep grammar” provides the linguistic roots and any coherence “surface grammar” might possess. The further point is that any resolution of the “which-that” debate must take place not at the level of “surface grammar” but rather at the level of “deep grammar,” the level at which Montrealman flourishes as the foregoing analysis of language has amply demonstrated.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!