> One must agree with Phil Bralich on the issue of human selection when it comes
to what in the real we are to call 'entities'.  Take this quotation from Jean
Aitchison's 'The Seeds of Speech' (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press,
1996):

'Nouns are at one end of a continuum, with words that retain their identity
through time, such as dog, mountain, sky.  Verbs are at the other end, with
words that involve rapid change, such as jump, hit, swim.  In the middle
come properties, some semi-permanent, as in a large elephant, a round pond,
a green frog, and some temporary, as in an angry bull, a happy baby, a hot
day.' (p. 132)

She then shows how languages differ in this regard, pointing out that there
is an indefinite borderline, as regards what they refer to, between nouns
and adjectives on the one hand, and verbs and adjectives on the other.  She
thus goes on to illustrate the point from English:

'Some adjectives seem more like nouns, as in a gold watch, a tin tray,
others more like verbs, as in a lasting peace, a whistling kettle.'  (ibid.)

It is important here is to ask what kind of a Œcontinuum¹ she is referring
to.  It appears that she just means that there is a gradation of meaning in
the words themselves so that we could set them out in some kind of ascending
order from stability to changeableness. But what cannot be left out here is
the actual continuum, the changeable real, 'matter', the 'hyle' of the
Greeks, Heracleitos's flow of becoming, whatever you like to call it, upon
which people are endeavouring to get a mutual fix with their statements to
each other.  This is a serious engagement with the contingencies of time in
which we each (if we are not lying) are, according to our own lights,
hopefully endeavouring to update others.  What we apply these functional
devices we call Œparts of speech¹ to is a matter of human choice.  The word
Œmatter¹ itself gives away the fact that we are trying to divide up the
continuum of the real together so that our PURPOSES, our desires and fears,
will keep in harmony both with the real and with each other across persons.
So what we apply them to must reflect our immediate and long-term
preferences, those that our bodies and the society our bodies try to
maintain out of the real in the hope of success, and not necessarily
anything already so classified in the real.  Entities, even persons, don't
come already labelled or as purely 'singular' in the real.  If I may here
refer to my recent book 'Narrative, Perception, Language, and Faith'
(Macmillan, 2005), you will find there the notion of a singular entity
exposed to a close analysis (chapters 4 and 5), together with its relation
to the Statement in use.

Edmond


Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England

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Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33
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