Sometimes Craig makes assertions that need more support than he provides in his posts.

>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 06/09/09 11:03 AM >>>
Susan,
   You should read "Metaphors We Live By" (there are other follow up
books)if you haven't already. They are a core aspect of language and
cognition, well documented, well researched.
   If you find my views pointless, it might be better not to respond. 

*****
I have no idea how "core" metaphors are in language.  They don't seem to explain anything about the formal aspects of the tense-aspect system, the basic structure of phrases and clauses, the pronominal system, etc.  

However, let's consider the following sentence on the bottom of page 1 in Metaphors We Live By.

Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like.

***
Pinker, in the Language Instinct, does a good job of suggesting that thinking and the language we use to express those thoughts are necessarily different systems.  Consider the problem of syntactic ambiguity: the basis of this famous joke by Groucho Marx.

Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How it got there, I have no idea.

If we take the statement by Lakoff and Johnson seriously, then whenever a person thinks about what they were wearing when they shoot an animal is necessarily confusable with where the animal was.  Really? A person can't keep those two ideas separate. 

Of course, if we have to translate our thoughts to a formal system, the ambiguity that is the basis of Marx's joke makes sense.

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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