PREFACE
Since the middle of the 18th Century, the vocabularies of the ten chief European
languages have increased almost in proportion to the population, and with hardly less embarrassing results.
The Dictionary
of to-day contains some 500,000 entries ;
that of to-morrow may easily double that
number ; and even the popular lecturer
or radiorator assumes that his hearers
are familiar with between 20,000 and
30,000 words.
Many of these are admittedly sheer
verbiage. They serve no useful purpose ;
they are not even part of the legitimate
technique of the rhetorician, yet their
acquisition occupies anything from five
to twenty-five years of the life of Western
man; and in the East the tyranny of
language is even more oppressive. All
this is quite apart from Babel itself --
the 1500 tongues, no more than three or
four of which the average educated adult
has even a smattering of.
1
Hence the significance of
Miss Lockhart's pioneer contribution in this difficult
field. Its importance for the problem of a
Universal Language is equally obvious,
for the ' Basic English ' analysis shows
that the needs of general communication
can be met with a scientifically selected
vocabulary of 850 words, while for the
purposes of Science itself short special
vocabularies set the expert to a further
stage where international terms are, for
the most part, already available. Miss
Lockhart's
The Basic Traveller, and her
translation of Leonhard Frank's novel,
Carl and Anna, into this simplified language,
have already demonstrated the
practical value of such a system.
The researches here summarized form
part of an inquiry whose initiation was
made possible by a grant to The
Orthological Institute from the Payne
Fund in 1929. The remainder will be
made available as opportunity allows.
----------
1. This aspect of the problem is dealt with in
Debabelization, uniform with the present volume.
C. K. OGDEN,
The Orthological Institute,
10, King's Parade,
Cambridge.
8
I . INTRODUCTORY
' Word Economy ' is a comprehensive
term for the various approaches to a
systematic use of language. It stands
for all forms of word-organization as
opposed to word-wastage.
This essay is not, therefore,
an attempt
to popularize a new science, or pseudo-science
of Laconics. We may consider
with equal relevance the abbreviations
of the shorthand expert, the symbols
of the scientist, the inflections of the
grammarian, the curtailed vocabulary
of the simplifier, and even the word-coinage
of the creative writer. For
economy cannot be considered apart
from the purpose which inspires it.
All depends upon what particular end
the linguistic reformer has in view; that
is, upon whether he wishes to speed up
communication, assist the rational processes,
or compress speech into tabloid
form ; upon whether he is chiefly interested
in promoting clarity of expression
and ease of learning, or in achieving new
verbal effects.
Economy is possible at three different
levels : it may be achieved by the contraction
of ideas, of vocabulary, or of words.
Contracted ideas result in a condensation
of expression. Grammatically this
takes the form of inflection and fusion ;
semantically, it is the use of simple symbols
for complex references. References
that are symbolically tied in this way are
not consciously analysed except in a
dialectical
impasse where definition is
called for. Complex psychological
descriptions such as ' suspicious ' and
' quizzical ', for example, normally function as thought-units. A further degree
of contraction generates fictions. These
contractions are an essential feature of
language, but failure to expand them
when occasion arises is one of the main
sources of linguistic error.
A contracted vocabulary diminishes
the number of words employed while
extending the range of each. The effect
of economy at this level is thus to increase
the total number of symbols employed
but to decrease the number of different
symbols available.
Contracted words, which may be
regarded as economy practiced at its most
superficial level, effect a saving of time
and space, but do not seriously modify
our use of language. This symbolic
economy has given us shorthand and the
scientific notations. The former is of
little general linguistic interest because
it is concerned with sign-symbols that
have to be translated back into word-symbols
before they can be satisfactorily
interpreted ; but the latter open up an
interesting field of enquiry.
It is the purpose of this essay to attempt
a practical orientation of linguistic values.
Condensation or stylistic economy has
long been the study of those who have an
interest in language for its aesthetic
qualities. So much has attention been
focussed on this aspect of economy that
the validity of the utilitarian approach
is scarcely recognized. For this reason,
interest here is directed mainly towards
the simplification of language resulting
from the economy of expansion, and
the notational possibilities that might
emerge from a more systematic study of
the abbreviating technique.
In an age of professionalism, the world
is just waking up to the fact that speech,
the basic social activity, remains in the
hands of the amateur. The philologist
and the phonetician have staked out a
scientific claim in this wilderness, but
notational and symbolic studies are still,
for the most part, virgin soil.
1
So far does the science of language lag
behind its art that suggestions for the
conscious direction of linguistic development
are viewed with a deep and conservative
suspicion. So long as the public
continues to regard linguistic research
as an exotic pursuit having no application
to daily needs, it can scarcely be hoped
that a programme of grammatical and
notational reform, like that recently
advocated by Sir Richard Paget, will
receive the support essential to its
success.
2
It is true that there are processes at
work in language itself which are gradually
tending towards simplification and improvement.
These processes are particularly active in English. Inflections are
disappearing, synonyms are becoming
differentiated, irregularities (thanks to the
persistent solecisms of the ' common '
people) are being ironed out. But this
blind progress is necessarily slow and
halting. Grammarians still hold the fort
for
shall and
will, and even the obsolete
whom is cherished by the literary precision.
Here, as everywhere, reform is checked
by vested interests. And these lose
nothing of their potency because on this
occasion the frock·coat of industry has
been exchanged for the threadbare clothes
of pedagogy.
----------
1. It is significant that there is no entry under
Notation in the 14th edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, and that symbols are dealt with solely
from the standpoint of religion.
2. Human Speech, Chap. XIII.
The fact that language is dynamic and
constantly changing is overlooked in an
unreasoning opposition to the innovator.
Bishop Wilkins' attempt to devise a real
character met with no public response ;
and Leibnitz's scheme for an algebra of
human thought fared no better.
Although both these projects had serious
defects, the revolutionary character of
their proposals would have been sufficient
to stimulate notational activity had any
interest existed in the subject. Bentham's
contributions to linguistic thought
were received with similar indifference.
It was left to a contemporary German to
rediscover his theory of linguistic fictions,
1
and his efforts to free our sociological
vocabulary from the taint of moral
judgments was discounted like the rest
of his utilitarian programme.
The explanation of this resistance to
organization in linguistic matters is to
be found, very largely, in the nature of
language itself. The ordinary citizen is
ignorant of its origin, and unconscious for
the most part, of its changes. Familiarity
with words and the manner in which they
are used begins in the cradle, at an age
when the mind is receptive rather than
critical; and the uncritical attitude thus
formed is apt to persist through life.
Moreover, in the growth of a language,
accident plays a far larger part than
design. The history of a vocabulary is
a tale of haphazard assimilation. Our
own language has a heritage of synonyms
and overlaps dating back to the dilution
of Anglo-Saxon with Norman French at
the time of the Conquest, and French has
been similarly afflicted by the coalescence
of the
langue d'Oc and the
langue d'Oil.
One is not tempted to discover a system
amid so much confusion.
----------
1. H. Vaihinger : The Philosophy of ' As If '.
14
Comparative philology only tends to
confirm the view that languages are
ad
hoc developments, for which no scientific
norm can be postulated. The thought-processes
of human beings may possibly
be similar, but the methods by which
they express them are extraordinarily
diverse. The phonetic, semantic, and
structural differences between languages
are so great that the common fundamentals
of speech, forming the basis for
a science of linguistic, are forgotten in
the contemplation of its divergences.
Between one of the highly inflected
American-Indian languages and Chinese
there is probably not a single formal
point in common. This is very disconcerting
to a person trying to regard
language as an instrument of scientific
precision. And it is only natural where
there is so much idiosyncrasy and so
little reason, that the individual should
come to feel an affection for the particular
idiosyncrasies of the language with which
he is most familiar.
Unfortunately, no distinction is made
in this connection between the literary
uses of a language, which are furthered
immeasurably by the jealous guardianship
15
of sentiment, and its practical uses,
which can be developed only by a
complete disregard of stylistic prejudice.
The disapproval commonly expressed for
any innovation designed to make language
more plastic, more lucid, or more
accessible to the foreigner is based on
quite irrelevant considerations. It is as
though a manufacturer were to instruct
an architect to design a hygienic factory,
and then turn down the plans because
the ventilation-shaft had not been made
to resemble a copula.
This attitude finds expression in a
fanatical enslavement to the classics on
the one hand, and in a frenzy of Anglo-Saxon
purism on the other, the nature
of the disease being determined by the
literary temperament of the patient.
Latinist and Nordic enthusiasts alike are
impatient of all modern experiments with
language. They condemn Esperanto
without trial because it has no history
and dismiss Commercial English with
similar despatch because it is associated
with clerks. Such persons attach a
greater importance to the literary
associations of a vocabulary than to its
effective distribution. They are impressed
16
by statistics and do not realize, what
Bentham in his wisdom saw clearly,
that a purely numerical standard is
in-adequate when making vocabulary
assessments. " Copiousness ", says
Benthem in his 'Essay on Language ',
" may be distinguished into useful or
serviceable, and useless or unserviceable . . .
Scantiness and useless copiousness,
i.e.,
redundancy, are properties very capable
of coexisting in conjunction with one
another in the same language ".
1
---------
1. Works (ed. Bowring), Vol. VIII, p. 309.
Allied to literary conservatism is the
conservatism of social habit. Men have
become as fixed in their linguistic habits
as they are in their dress. Thousands of
males cherish a secret desire for more
comfortable and more aesthetic attire,
but few are prepared to risk public ridicule
by joining the Dress Reformers. Similarly,
there are many who confess in
private that the pedantries of cultured
speech annoy them, and yet have not
themselves the courage to split their
infinitives, or use a rationalized spelling,
or even to admit as social equals men
whose speech habits differ slightly from
their own. Social timidity is the root
17
cause of the Englishman's dislike of
Americanisms. He may enjoy the
pungency of the transatlantic vocabulary,
but, except between inverted commas,
he dare not imitate it.
But more fatal even than social habits
to the cause of word economy are the
mental habits which underlie our use of
language. Only those whose education has
been carried to the more advanced stages
are able to dispense with the customary
linguistic rails. Most artists would hold
themselves robbed of a colour if
brown
became
dark orange ; and one wonders
how the modern art critic would express
himself if the word
plastic were deleted
from his vocabulary. Business correspondence
would certainly cease if clerks were forbidden
to write of
favours, quotations, and
remittances ;
and religion would probably die out if a decree went
forth that
God must be exchanged for
some less vague term of reference. Even
the scientist, who does make some attempt
to fit his terms into a system, and is
therefore not without enlightenment, would
rebel at the elimination of such redundancies
as
conduction, tube, and
electricity
in favour of
transport, pipe, and
juice.
18
With so much occasion for opposition
and indifference, it is perhaps not
surprising that word economy should have
taken so long to claim public attention.
A further difficulty arises from the fact
that language, like the roads, is the
province of everyone in general and of no
one in particular. The scientist in his
laboratory may remark that classifications
are unsatisfactory ; the lawyer
admits between one profitable case and
the next that legal fictions are in need of
revision ; the economist pauses amid his
statistics to complain about the faulty
definition of his terms. But none of
these are prepared to take any steps to
remedy what is wrong. Linguistic research
would be to the advantage of all,
but who is to undertake the job ? The
answer is that there is as much need of a
specialist here as there is in plumbing,
or cooking, or dress-making, or in any
other of the major activities on which
our civilization depends. The recognition
of the orthologist as a useful member
of the scientific community is the first
step towards a proper orientation in
linguistic matters.
19
PART II . STRUCTURAL ECONOMY
No fixed boundary divides the territory
of the grammar-book from that of the dictionary.
Just as the grammatical
structures of different languages vary in
complexity, so also do they vary in extent.
When the expression of a particular
relation or concept such as negation,
number, or gender becomes formally
distinct, by inflection, by tonal modification,
by word order, or by the use of a
separate symbol, it is erected into a
grammatical category.
Categories that form a main feature
of one linguistic system may be unimportant
or even non-existent in another.
Aspect, for example, is the outstanding
category of the Russian verb, and yet in
English it is formally almost Without
recognition. Grammatical devices that
one language has rendered indispensable
to the making of references are relegated
by another to a quite subordinate position.
Thus in French and German no substantive
can be used Without a pronouncement on
its gender, while in English, this qualification
is relevant only to such objects as
nature has endowed with sex. The
elaboration displayed by some languages
in their minimum referential requirements
is beyond the comprehension of those
who are fortunate enough to possess a
simple native tongue. A Kwakiutl
Indian, so Sapir tells us,
1 has no means
of expressing the simple sentence, " The
farmer kills the duck". He would have
to complicate his utterance in some such
style as this : " This farmer (invisible to
us but standing behind a door not far
away from me, you being seated yonder
well out of reach) kills that duckling
(which belongs to you) ".
It is in the interests both of simplicity
and of clarity that the essentials of
intelligible discourse should be as few as
possible. The more intricate the mechanism
of the sentence is made, the more
complicated become the mental operations
required to frame it. And if a
number of references figure compulsorily
in every statement, it is impossible to
select a simple reference and present it
in isolation. In other words, a man who
wants to pull down a single house can only
do so by blowing up the whole town, with
the result that the inhabitants are quite
naturally left in doubt as to which house
was originally marked out for demolition.
----------
1. Language, p. 97.
But while the advantage of a simple
sentence-unit would be generally conceded,
the case for reducing the grammar of a
language as a whole is not quite so axiomatic.
There are those who maintain
that a language is subtle in proportion
as its grammar is extensive, and who see
some peculiar virtue in the multiplication
of grammatical categories. It seems,
however, that by extending the held of
grammatical usage one is merely substituting
rules of thumb for common sense.
When the complaint is made, for example,
that the ambiguity of the sentence, " The
leopard has spots " is due to the fact that
English is deficient in a special form
distinguishing universal from particular
statements, this is true only to the extent
that the grammatical convention is a
poor one. But no special rule is necessary
to enforce the distinction in question,
since a mere knowledge of the dictionary
would enable one to say "All leopards
have spots ".
The view is also current that virtue lies
in complexity of structure. Thus it is
claimed that the flexional languages
represent a higher development than the
agglutinating or the analytic languages.
This was held to be the case almost
— universally by the older School of Philologists
represented by Schleicher. The
sanctity of grammar is not, however,
respected by modern students of linguistics,
and the generally accepted criterion
of the present day is that put forward by
Jespersen: the most satisfactory language
is that which is able to express the
greatest amount of meaning with the
simplest mechanism.
1
The ideal of economy here expressed,
is best served by an analytic language,
in which the elements entering into one
construction may be reassembled and
used in another. This quality of flexibility
exists to a very marked degree in the
English tense system, where the complex
tenses are built up out of the simple
elements.
Will do is elaborated into
will
have alone, will have been done, and so on.
A further economy of these analytic
particles is that they generate exceptions
and irregularities less readily than the
inflectional forms.
----------
1. Progress in Language, p. 13.
In English, the analytic rendering is
. displayed not only in the formation of
tenses but in the splitting up of the verb
forms themselves. The idiomatic use of
the verb forms symbolizing the fundamental
operations (
put, take, come, go, etc.)
with adverbs and prepositions symbolizing
spatial or directional notions, is rapidly
providing a set of simple combinations
which, when extended by metaphor, will
do the work of 90% of the more elaborate
verbs.
This tendency has been used as the
first principle of simplification in Basic
English, an experiment which will be
discussed at some length in these pages
because of the lesson in Applied Linguistics
which it provides.
1
In Basic English
the verb system has been reduced to
sixteen operators or verb-forms (
come,
get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take,
be, do, have, say, see, send), and two
auxiliaries (
may and
will). These operators,
in combination with twenty—one
prepositions or directives, act as substitutes
for about 4,000 common verbs.
The reduction of auxiliaries is effected by
means of various circumlocutions. Thus
ought = 'it is right '
can = ' be able ',
must = ' have to '.
----------
1. Basic English is a simplified form of English
designed for world communication. An account
of the system, and details of the arguments,
statistical and otherwise, for its adoption
as an international language are to be found
in Basic English and The Basic Vocabulary
by C. K. Ogden, uniform with this volume.
It is significant that in Novial, which is
at once the most authoritative and the
most recent attempt to overcome the
barrier to international discourse by
means of a constructed language, Professor
Jespersen has recognized the advantages
of an analytic verb system.
1 His
improvements on Ido are almost all in the
direction of discarding the synthetic forms
and approximating to those found in the
natural languages. The best example of
this is in his treatment of the verb. He
abandons the whole of Zamenhof's
a priori
verbal system, based on a minimum of
auxiliaries and a multiplicity of particles
on the ground that ' the whole system is
totally artificial, without any connection
with our natural linguistic habits '. But further,
he makes a declaration all-important
for those who are at present considering the
question of improving the verb,
that though " the six participles may be
helpful in some instances to express
nuances which ordinary languages do not
distinguish . . . they often also constitute a
real
embarras de richesse." It is
not in the direction of subtlety but of
simplification that the verb can be profitably
improved. Professor Jespersen's
incorporation in
Novial of all the salient
features of the English Verbal System is
evidence that no artificial language can
carry this simplification much beyond
the point already foreshadowed by tendencies
operating at present in some of
the natural languages. He recognizes the
increasingly important function of auxiliaries,
and introduces
ha and
fika as special
auxiliary forms of the verbs ' have ' and
' make '. He also points out how readily
auxiliaries may be built up into compound
tenses. As in English, no special ending
is used for the infinitive. The Imperative
is expressed with the auxiliary
let, and
wishing with
may. Similarly, Future and
Conditional are operated by the auxiliaries
sal and
vud, Perfect and Pluperfect by
ha and
had, and
did is employed in the
analytical form of the Past. In Indirect
Speech, English is substituted for Esperanto
usage. Novial has the advantage
over English in being entirely free from
verbal inflections indicative of number,
but even in English only the third person
singular is inflected in this way, so that
no great burden is imposed on the
memory.
----------
1. For an account of Novial see An International Language,
by Otto Jespersen.
The two important points in which the
Novial verbal system differs from the
English are the invariable use of the
simple stem—form instead of participles
in the compound tenses, and the expression
of the passive of becoming, as
distinct from the passive of being, by
means of the auxiliary
bli. The passive
of becoming, however, can, as Jespersen
points out, be expressed in English with
the auxiliary ' get ', which is now coming
into very general use. ' Get ' is, in fact,
more satisfactory than
bli, as it is used to
indicate the completion of an act rather
than 'becoming ' in the purely passive
sense. The passive of 'becoming ', as
exemplified by Jespersen, appears to be
little more than a nice academic point.
In the direction of simplifying and
reorganizing the structural aspects of
language, there is, as we have seen,
considerable scope for the reformer. Such
improvements would be made on a practical
level at which theoretical sanctions
had only a secondary importance. Basic
English is founded on a blend of hypothetical
reasoning and empiricism, in
which empiricism certainly predominates.
For example, the assumption that the
directives could all be derived from a set
of primary spatial definitions has been
found on investigation to be correct. But
the proof lies in the fact that English has
developed that way, and not in any law
inferred from a study of directives, whereby
it is obvious that they must all have a
spatial origin. If English had not happened
to proceed in this field by way of
metaphor instead of creating entirely
fresh words for analogous propositional
links, the principle could not have been
applied to a practical scheme of word
economy.
Whether it would be possible, in
constructing an ideal ' logical ' language, to
make the linguistic structure less empirical
in its foundations is open to doubt.
Universal Grammar reflects the
three-fold aspect of the physical world which is
apparent to us at the level of sense perception.
In our ordinary, unscientific
interpretation of sense-impressions we
distinguish between things, events, and
qualities. These last may be mentally
distinguished though physically they are
inseparable from the objects and happenings
which they are said to qualify.
It may be objected here that language,
even as normally used, departs from the
level of sense-impressions. Things,
qualities, and events are frequently named
in such a way that they are identifiable
by inference rather than by direct perception.
We have but to taste a dish to
know at once whether it is ' bitter '
or not, but it is only the waiter's knowledge
of the bill of fare provided in the
restaurant which enables him to assure
us that the dish in question is to-day's
'special'. Or, again, if we see a man
striding earnestly along the Brighton
road we can say without hesitation that
he is 'walking ', but it is not until we
see headlines in the evening paper that
we realize he was ' attempting ' to break
an ambulatory record.
The position is, however, not affected
by this question of inference, since the
inference, no matter how complex, is
based upon sense-impressions.
Science is deeply sceptical of the
three-fold approach to the external world.
It asserts that matter, when tracked
down in the laboratory to a point at which
it disappears even from the discerning
eye of the microscope, is reducible to a
formula which equates it with events ;
and it notes that an object, so far as our
description of it goes, is nothing but a
complex of sense—impressions which,
taken by themselves, might be referred to
adjectivally. Strip an object of its
qualities and language balks. But language,
except when terms have been re-defined
and fitted into a system by specialists,
is not built up at the scientist's level.
Nor is it likely that it would be as
efficient a medium of communication for
everyday purposes if this had been the
case. It is very much an
ad hoc affair,
and if the orthologist forgets this and
treats language as though it had resulted
from a scientific approach he is likely to
go astray. It is most improbable that a
study of grammatical logic will shed any
light on the nature of existence. One
is tempted, for example, to try to classify
alternative forms of expression as
being more and less fundamental,
assuming that language corresponds
in some way t0 the facts of nature.
Is it more basic to break down ' through '
into ' get from one end to the other of ' ?
Are operations like 'make' expressed
more satisfactorily with the copula and a
participle (is making) than with the
present indicative (make) ?
But this is a barren field. The phrases
which seem more analytical and therefore
more fundamental in the sense of being
the natural starting point for a more
complicated word structure are probably
only thought to be so because of the particular
set of conventions to which we have
become accustomed. There is a danger
of approving mere verbosity because it
has the appearance of being a reduction
to simple terms.
The only profitable course is to accept
the linguistic interpretation of observed
phenomena as it stands, and to clarify
at that level, in passing, we may admit
with the scientist that the dualism of
thing and event is from an enlightened
point of view preposterous -- that events
cannot be regarded as in some way subordinate
to the things which perform them,
if, in fact, things themselves are nothing
but innumerable microscopic events.
Nevertheless, as linguists, we must admit
the distinction between things, qualities
and events, otherwise we shall fail to
touch our problem at any point.
Conventionally, these categories are
symbolized for Grammar by the noun-form,
the adjective (and adverb)-form,
and the verb-form. The three-fold aspect
has thus been crystallized by language,
and when its symbols are used for a
category which they do not correctly
symbolize, we are liable, in so far as the
categories are valid, to create a special
form of fiction—the metaphorical.
1 In a
general way metaphor consists in the
extension of a symbol devised for one set
or group of entities to another set either
analogous or related, In the case of
metaphorical fictions, however, the metaphor
is created by the extension of the
actual form of symbolization of one type
of referent to another type for which some
other symbolic form would be more appropriate
though perhaps less linguistically
convenient,
----------
1. It would be rash to go further than this and
maintain that all linguistic fictions are created
by using symbols for a category of entities which
" they do not correctly symbolize " for on this
view, grammatical entities are assumed to be
something more than conveniences in communication.
The general conception of the
physical world has been repeatedly modified,
while the grammatical categories, forming, as
they do, a part of our linguistic habits, remain
unchanged. It seems probable, therefore, that
verb and substantive forms are to be regarded
less as standing for mutually exclusive categories
of referents than as alternative methods of
symbolizing experiences which have not as yet
found an adequate notation. If this is the case,
fictions cannot be solely the product of "
incorrectness of symbolization " in the sense
suggested, At this stage it is wise to give a.
definition in more general terms. A word or a
phrase stands for a fiction when it is not to be
interpreted literally. To interpret a word
literally is to treat it as a name for, or a direct
description of, an experience.
The attention of those engaged upon
the more fundamental problems of
Applied Linguistics might profitably be
turned to the manipulation of fictions,
In the discussion of this subject it is
important to remember that we are always
in fact concerned with the use of a symbol
on some particular occasion -- not with
any ' right ' or ' true ' meaning such as is
often attributed to words by literary
persons.
Since it is only the scientist who can
decide whether a word coming within the
notation of his science symbolizes a fiction,
the problem of fictions belongs as much to
science as to linguistic. Except in respect
of certain types of words such as
than, if,
as, the, which may be clearly distinguished
as linguistic accessories, that is as part of
the necessary framework of symbolization,
language does not discriminate in its
treatment of fictions and non-fictions.
When one sees howl readily philosophers
create spurious real entities even out of
what is obviously only linguistic machinery,
it is not surprising to find them failing to
detect fictions which have all the air of
being something more. When the
scientist can, with perfectly satisfactory
results, treat
energy as a substance not
only measurable but capable of being
bought and sold, it is inevitable that
those who lack the necessary scientific
data should be misled.
But language has an even more direct
responsibility than this for the generation
of fictions. Its mechanism lends itself
to the treatment of fictional forms not
only, like such conveniences as
speed and
rhythm, as symbolic shorthand which
may be translated into descriptive terms
for real entities, but as symbols with a
direct relation to a transcendental world
of Being.
Colour, when regarded as a
' universal', is an example. Likewise
redness, smoothness, dryness, etc. The
ease with which abstract nouns are formed
results in the duplication of symbols for
a single referent. That these secondary
symbols are stylistically convenient is
not denied. But epistemologists who
ignore the fact that ' having dryness '
is no more than another way of saying
' being dry ', involve themselves in
meta-physical considerations that make
non-sense of their discourse. They even go
so far as to build fictions out of fictions,
as, for example, when they insist that
there is a ' property ' of
similarity which
can be ascribed to objects by the fictional
adjective
similar.
As we have already seen, no satisfactory
account has yet been given of so-called
events, and their relation to things. In
course of time, if scientific enlightenment
can co—operate with linguistic enlightenment,
an analysis in terms of experiences
may enable us to distinguish fictional
from non—fictional events as we distinguish
fictional from non-fictional things. Until
that point has been reached there is
a danger, in spite of its stylistic
conveniences, in employing a special verb
form for the symbolization of events.
It suggests a knowledge of the subject
which we do not possess, Moreover,
quite apart from the fact that the verb
lends itself more than any other part of
speech to the agglutination of functions,
it is not necessarily an action word. The
statement " The Orthological Institute
owns this Panopticon " loses nothing
when expressed as " This Panopticon is
the property of the Orthological Institute ".
We have here a distinctly misleading category. On the other hand,
if all verbs are turned into their substantive form, the fact that many of them are
being fictionally symbolized will become
so clear that no one will fall into error.
Thus, as Bentham pointed out, it is by
a palpable fiction that we describe a
'moving object ' as ' an object which
is in motion '. But there is a temptation
to assume that
move has a unique referent
without further enquiry.
There is therefore a certain case
for shelving the difficulty as Bentham
did by deliberately introducing a fictional
form such as
in motion. But there is an
even stronger case for using the resources
of scientific knowledge to solve the whole
problem and arrive at a more satisfactory
symbolization.
37
Part III
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Last updated November 2, 2012.