[PRL] linguistics question

John Clements clements at brinckerhoff.org
Wed Dec 1 10:23:49 EST 2004


On Dec 1, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Jeffrey D Palm wrote:

> There's a linguistics theory (I think) that states something such as:
>
> Speakers are lazy and want to use as limited a vocublary as possible 
> -- i.e. have multiple meanings for words.  But listeners would rather 
> have as unabmiguous a vocabulary as possible -- one word, one meaning.
>
> Does any know the name of this theory?  I'm pretty sure it has a name.


Don't know, but if conscious thought consists largely of speaking to 
ourselves[*], then the lazy speaker is also a lazy thinker.

john

[*] cf. the book I'm reading with the pompous but provocative title 
"Conscousness Explained".

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2169 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.ccs.neu.edu/pipermail/prl/attachments/20041201/fddf6bcb/smime.bin


More information about the PRL mailing list