Date: Sun, 02 Feb 1997 22:25:08 -0100 (GMT) From: Celso Alvarez Caccamo Subject: Re: Lost message X-Sender: lxalvarz@unico To: Jim Wilce MIME-version: 1.0 >From lxalvarz@udc.esSun Feb 2 22:22:56 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 01:54:54 -0100 (GMT) From: Celso Alvarez Caccamo To: Aaron Fox Cc: "Harold F. Schiffman" , linganthro list Subject: Re: Logic, etc On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Aaron Fox wrote:

>all, is a comparative emics. "I don't want nothin'" is after all a different surface form from "I don't want nothing," and could mediate rather distinct cognitive/perceptual/behavioral/affective sets toward "reality" in some dialects of English where the contrast would be referentially marked (as well as indexical of formality of situation and dialect/register commanded by the speaker).

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. First of all, there's no referential expression in "I don't want nothing" -- there's no identifiable referent out there expressed unambiguously by any linguistic form -- so, "nothing" and "nothin'" can't contrast referentially. Semantically, alright, but not all semantics is referential.

Secondly, "nothin" and "nothing" may be indexical of situation (and other things), but also *constitutive* of those situations they index. Now, I don't understand how a given linguistic usage can be indexical of the user's use of that usage. It sounds tautological to me. Or, if it's "indexical", its indexicality is rather trivial. It's just a display of competence.

As for the semantics of "nothing" / "nothin", perhaps the contrast is simply based on the use/mention distinction:

I don' wan' nothin' -- 'nothin'' is used emphatically, i.e. "anything"
I don't want "nothing" -- 'nothing' is mentioned metalinguistically; more or less as Aaron says, but in fewer words.

But I personally don't need two "nothing" in my lexicon, as Aaron Fox suggests. Just one and a little bit of competence-in-performance.

Regards,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Celso Alvarez Caccamo Tel. 34-81-130457, ext. 1888 Depto. de Linguistica Geral FAX 34-81-132459 e Teoria da Literatura e-mail: lxalvarz@udc.es Universidade da Corunha http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac 15007 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~