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Ray
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 Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:57 am Post subject: preface to the 2nd edition of James McCawley>s Everything th |
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Hi,
I don>t know if my question is proper here, but I am quite puzzled by
what McCawley said about "change in the title" in the following
preface. I don>t see any difference in the title between the 1st and
2nd editions. Could anyone enlighten me? Is there anything deeper to
this preface than the superficial wording indicates? Note that he put
a note after "...the misleading appearance of a new book with a new
title".
I>d appreciate your help.
Ray
=========================================Inevitably, this volume will be referred to as Everything That
Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to
Ask, second edition. Nonetheless, it may help readers if they take the
trouble to notice the change in the title, which they might otherwise
overlook: this book is entitled Everything That Linguists Have Always
Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to Ask, whereas the book
that appeared in 1981 was entitled Everything That Linguists Have
Always Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to Ask. Had I
retained the original title, the words printed on the cover would have
to be Everything That Linguists in 1981 Had Always Wanted to Know
About Logic—But Ashamed to Ask, and what would really have been just a
second edition of the 1981 book would have taken on the misleading
appearance of a new book with a new title. However, I will bow to the
inevitable and refer to the present book henceforth as the second
edition, a policy that can be defended at least on the grounds that
many of its sections are lineal descendants of corresponding sections
in the original book, and thus its content is such as would easily
merit a designation as “second edition” if the title did not involve a
present tense whose deictic anchorage had changed between the two
editions. |
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Peter T. Daniels
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| Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:58 pm Post subject: Re: preface to the 2nd edition of James McCawley>s Everythin |
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On Oct 17, 7:57 am, Ray <raymondaliasapoll...@yahoo.com.tw> wrote:
[quote]Hi,
I don>t know if my question is proper here, but I am quite puzzled by
what McCawley said about "change in the title" in the following
preface. I don>t see any difference in the title between the 1st and
2nd editions. Could anyone enlighten me? Is there anything deeper to
this preface than the superficial wording indicates? Note that he put
a note after "...the misleading appearance of a new book with a new
title".
I>d appreciate your help.
Ray
=========================================> Inevitably, this volume will be referred to as Everything That
Linguists Have Always Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to
Ask, second edition. Nonetheless, it may help readers if they take the
trouble to notice the change in the title, which they might otherwise
overlook: this book is entitled Everything That Linguists Have Always
Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to Ask, whereas the book
that appeared in 1981 was entitled Everything That Linguists Have
Always Wanted to Know About Logic—But Were Ashamed to Ask. Had I
retained the original title, the words printed on the cover would have
to be Everything That Linguists in 1981 Had Always Wanted to Know
About Logic—But Ashamed to Ask, and what would really have been just a
second edition of the 1981 book would have taken on the misleading
appearance of a new book with a new title. However, I will bow to the
inevitable and refer to the present book henceforth as the second
edition, a policy that can be defended at least on the grounds that
many of its sections are lineal descendants of corresponding sections
in the original book, and thus its content is such as would easily
merit a designation as “second edition” if the title did not involve a
present tense whose deictic anchorage had changed between the two
editions.
[/quote]
See the last clause you quoted. Jim regarded the time reference of a
verb as a very real thing.
You might also want to read the preface or introduction to Thirty
Million Theories of Grammar -- Jim was a Heraclitan (you can>t step in
the same stream twice) and a follower of the science-anarchist
Lakatos.
You might also want to compare the two versions page by page -- I>m
not sure I ever acquired the second edition even though he thanked me
for lists of typos (in the first half -- I never did get all the way
to the end). |
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