From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!west.West.Sun.COM!smaug.West.Sun.COM!dab Thu Oct  8 10:11:30 EDT 1992
Article 7141 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: dab@ism.isc.com (Dave Butterfield)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Brain and Mind (was: Logic and God)
Date: 6 Oct 1992 21:52:53 GMT
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References: <1992Oct5.174528.20148@usl.edu> <1aqirgINN5u9@smaug.West.Sun.COM> <1992Oct6.170950.19297@usl.edu>
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mhf4421@usl.edu (Flynn Matthew H) writes:
=>>Derrida and De Sausare (sp.?) argue rather convincingly that language is
=>>arbitrary, and there is no real reason why any particular word, letter, or
=>>phoneme need mean what we accept it to mean.
=>
=>The origin of the word "mama" (and its close relatives in other languages)
=>appears to contradict that statement.  "Ma" is one of the easiest syllables
=>to utter, and is one of the first spoken by infants.  The first entity that
=>an infant wants to refer to is his mother.  The association of that word to
=>that concept was not arbitrary.  Reference the OED for more detail.
=
=Yes, mama is one of the easiest things for an infant to say, so it does.  But
=is there anything inherent in the sound or form of "mama" that links it to the
=actual physical mother?

Only that the sound and form of "mama" tends to be one of the first
words an infant can render, and that the actual physical mother is
one of the first things an infant tends to want to refer to.  Those
are both pretty inherent tendencies.

=Why "mama"?  because it is convenient,  not because "mama" has any
=inherent meaning.

I don't think the word "mama" has any inherent meaning.  What I think
is inherent is the likelyhood that that word will come to have that
meaning.  My specific statement above, which I still believe, is that
the association of the word "mama" to the concept of one's mother was
not arbitrary: there are reasons why that connection is likely.
Perhaps I should revise my opinion:  I suppose in a sense this *does*
argue that the word "mama" has inherent meaning.

Anyway, the existence of a few exceptions such as "mama" and
onomatopoeia doesn't really hurt your argument -- I was making
a side note.

Dave
-- 
	I output a string of symbols and I observe the response.


