[B-Greek] APOLUTRWSIS

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Mar 19 09:31:43 EST 2007


On Mar 19, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Eddie Mishoe wrote:

> Barry said:
>>
>> It means that words don't have innate meaning, but
>> only meaning in context.
>> With words that have a wide semantic range, what we
>> think of as the "innate" or
>> "primary" meaning is usually the most common usage.
>
> This is incorrect as stated. Context does not create
> meaning for a lexeme. Context identifies which nuance
> (within which semantic domain) is to be used. And this
> is also why language has a serious limitations and
> ambiguity, even in speech.
>
> A truck used as a 'bullet' has no meaning unless
> bullet has innate meaning and we are able to use one
> of its innate senses metaphorically.

I don't think this is really quite true, although it may seem so  
insofar as we are dealing with words that are unquestionably linked  
to a concrete referent. Many words do in fact belong to more than one  
semantic domain, and although lexica may list senses in terms of  
primary and derivative or transferred senses, there are instances  
enough of words for which such a numerical sorting is, at least to  
some extent, arbitrary. This is one reason why etymology is an  
unreliable key to meanings of words in particularly historical  
contexts, even if they are sometimes  helpful.

Barry's example of "run" is not, I think, meaningless at all. But a  
NT word that might be worth consideration is LOGOS, a word that  
functions very much like English "tale" (as LEGW relates to English  
"tell"); although we tend to think of the primary sense of LOGOS as  
"utterance" or "expression," a primary sense may very well be (at  
least historically) "tale" -- which may have the sense of "count" or  
"(narrative) account" -- and we can think of the English words  
"teller" and "tally" where the sense of "count" is foremost.

I suspect that the notion of the "intrinsic meaning" of words is  
ultimately a matter of philosophic presupposition, akin ultimately to  
the distinction in Medieval Scholastic philosophy between  
"Nominalism" and "Realism." I don't doubt that many will continue to  
believe in this notion of "intrinsic meanings" of words, although it  
is probably pretty difficult to demonstrate its utility in practice.  
There are numerous words in L&N that are found in several different  
semantic domains, and there are not a few instances where one must  
find the assignment to one rather than another semantic domain nigh  
unto arbitrary.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/




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