[Craig] Why not say: It is a shared understanding in a given pragmatic context that makes a word "MEANINGFUL"?
[Arlo] Because pragmatic resolution is not the only thing that bestows meaning. Take your favorite painting. Can you reduce it to something "literal", and would it still have the same "meaning"? Oh sure, this reduction may serve an immediate end (for example to categorize artists), but there is more to the painting than this. [Craig] Then, words are used literally when they're used with their usual meaning and used metaphorically only if they're used with other than their usual meaning. [Arlo] All words begin as metaphors, some function to point better, and "usual meaning" is simply a metaphor that has become frozen. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
