I'd like Phil to define "entity". "Something that exists" is clearly
not the definition, because "the present King of France" does not
exist. The _concept_ "the present King of France" can exist in one's
imagination, of one builds a fictional world in which France has a
king. But that king is still just a concept, not a person. A concept is
certainly an entity, but a person and a concept are very different
kinds of entities.
If there were no humans, would dogs still be nouns? How do you define
"noun"? If a tree falls in the forest, and there are no ears around,
does it make a sound? Certainly, its movement disturbs air molecules in
a way that would register as sound on one kind of ear or another. So
does it depend on how we define "sound"?
To me, and I'm betting to a lot of other language scholars, "noun" is a
linguistic term. It refers to a word class or "species" (I like that
analogy) in human language. As I said in my last post, these
classifications exist in the human mind, and only there.
If what you mean to say is that dogs have properties that make them
likely to be named by nouns by human beings, then that makes sense. But
the word "noun" (at least as it is conventionally used) has no meaning
outside of human heads. In Arabic, there is no difference between the
word for "arm" and the word for "hand". I think the same is true for
foot/leg, though there may be a word for the sole of the foot; I don't
recall. If there is some inherent relationship between a word and what
it names in the world, is there something wrong with Arabic, or with
English?
What makes "time" a noun? Our perception of time is based in the brain,
and it is flexible, as anyone who has been in an auto accident knows
(and recent research is tracking down the neurological mechanism that
makes it flexible). People thought of time very differently before
Einstein, and now people are questioning Einstein's idea of time. What
makes "lightning" a noun? If there is anything event-like, it is
lightning. If nouns are entities and verbs are not, why can a word be
both a noun and a verb?
Our only access to the world is through our brains. Our brains are
limited in what they perceive, and they are wired to see and divide up
the world in particular ways different from the brains of worms or bees
(if they have things we could call a brain) or frogs or kittens or
hawks or dolphins. It's possible that we are not yet aware of
everything our brain can perceive (as brain studies continually reveal
sensibilities we weren't aware of before), but that doesn't change the
fact that our brains are the "processors" of everything we experience.
If there are some kind of magical links between a word and a dog, we
haven't discovered them yet. In any case, that link would have to
recognize "chien", "Hund", "kalb", "kalba", and thousands of other
languages' words for dog.
As to bad grammar teaching practices, tell me what purpose it serves to
have 2nd-graders who are native speakers of standard English underline
the correct verb form in this sentence on a worksheet: "Susie's parents
(are/is) very friendly people." What is it, beyond a reading test? A
smart kid this age would have to wonder exactly what the point is of
having her do something that requires no work or thought whatsoever
(except, again, reading). She will need no knowledge of grammar terms
and will not have to consciously apply any rules to choose the correct
answer. All she has to do is underline the verb she would say.
There are quite a few exercises like this in the language-arts books
used in California schools today. I have several right here in my
house.
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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