Semantics Linguistics Quotes & Sayings

I am not a thing. I am not your possession. I am a human being."
- CBI Agent Sam Rose — Liana Brooks

If someone hurts you, he is hurting himself. He may not be able to escape that hurt in his lifetime. — Debasish Mridha

One man's modus ponens is another man's reductio, as epistemologists are forever pointing out (In Critical Condition, p. 70) — Jerry A. Fodor

Indeed, who has a greater right to public respect than the man of color fighting for freedom after having experienced all the horrors of slavery? To equal the most celebrated warriors he need only keep in mind all the evils he has suffered. — Tom Reiss

It's very challenging. The most important thing you need as a sportsman is to be clear on what you're actually doing. — Brett Lee

There are always different things that can happen and I Marjane Satrapi don't want to yell at other people. It's easier if we yell at each other. We're still friends, so obviously it worked out. — Vincent Paronnaud

It is understandable how this shame came into being. The nation made the black man's color a stigma. Even linguistics and semantics conspire to give this impression. If you look in Roget's Thesaurus you will find about 120 synonyms for blacK, and right down the line you will find words like smut, something dirty, worthless, and useless, and then you look further and you find about 120 synonyms for white and they all represent something high, noble, pure, chaste - right down the line. In our language structure, a white lie is a little better than a black lie. Somebody goes wrong in the family and we don't call him a white sheep, we call him a black sheep. We don't say whitemail, but blackmail. We don't speak of white-balling somebody, but black-balling somebody. The word 'black' itself in our society connotes something that is degrading. It was absolutely necessary to come to a moment with a sense of dignity. It is very positive and very necessary. — Martin Luther King Jr.

It seemed to a number of philosophers of language, myself included, that we should attempt to achieve a unification of Chomsky's syntax, with the results of the researches that were going on in semantics and pragmatics. I believe that this effort has proven to be a failure. Though Chomsky did indeed revolutionize the subject of linguistics, it is not at all clear, at the end the century, what the solid results of this revolution are. As far as I can tell there is not a single rule of syntax that all, or even most, competent linguists are prepared to agree is a rule. — John Rogers Searle

A universe of classical particles is devoid of knowledge because the universe can only be itself and not a representation of something else. If the universe was only composed of classical particles, then there would only be physical properties but no meanings. The idea that we can have information about an object without becoming that object is central to all knowledge. — Ashish Dalela

The English invented cricket to make other human endeavors look interesting. — Bill Bryson

It's much harder, much more work to be your own artist, and it's hard for me to just want to do one thing. I love doing my own music, but I really have to get into a groove with it, which has been difficult over the last few years because I've had so much great work coming in. — Gail Ann Dorsey

There are only two things in the world: nothing and semantics. — Werner Erhard

Psychology, the talking cure, linguistics, and semantics - they're all like dogs poking around and sniffing their own vomit. There might be some gems in there, you never know. For certain you will at the very least know what you had for lunch. And you can ascertain what not to eat again. — David Byrne

Moving in the conventional direction, phonetics concerns the acoustic dimensions of linguistic sound. Phonology studies the clustering of those acoustic properties into significant cues. Morphology studies the clustering of those cues into meaningful units. Syntax studies the arrangement of those meaningful units into expressive sequences. Semantics studies the composite meaning of those sequences. — Randy Allen Harris

I don't kid myself in thinking that I'm on the front lines. I know the people who are on the front lines. I mean there are people in some freakin' significant places making on-the-ground social front line change. I've marched. I've put feet on the ground for what I believe and what I'm against with no compromise. And there are people who are risking a whole hell of a lot more than me to make change, that's for damn sure. — Ben Harper

If the Mentalese story about the content of thought is true, then there couldn't be a private language argument. Good. That explains why there isn't one. (In Critical Condition, p. 68) — Jerry A. Fodor

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY "NO — Margalis Fjelstad

Buttressing this argument (that you can prevent children from learning to read or ride bicycles but you can't stop them from learning to talk), Chomsky had pointed to two other universals in human language: that its emergence in children follows a very precise timetable of development, no matter where they live or which particular language is the first they learn; and that language itself has an innate structure. Chomsky has recently reminded audiences that the origins of the structure of language - how semantics and syntax interact - remain as "arcane" as do its behavioral and neurologic roots. Chomsky himself finds nothing in classical Darwinism to account for human language.* And for that reason, says Plotkin, linguistics is left with a major theoretical dilemma. If human language is a heritable trait but one that represents a complete discontinuity from animal communicative behavior, where did it come from? — Frank R. Wilson

The sage does not become trapped in semantics, does not mistake map for territory, but rather "opens things up to the light of Heaven" by flowing with the words, by playing with the words. Once attuned to this flow, the sage need make no special effort to "illumine," for language does it by itself, spontaneously. Language spills over. — Hakim Bey

The more you are in this business, the more humbled by it you become. — Meryl Streep

So many murders happen because the victim trusts the guy who comes to the door, or asks for help, or offers a ride. — Jodi Picoult

Many times Blackthorne had looked over his shoulder expecting her there, but she was never there and never would be and this did not disturb him. She was with him forever, and he knew he would love her in the good times and in the tragic times, even in the winter of his life. She was always on the edge of his dreams. — James Clavell

Jace. This can't happen." I closed my eyes, thinking it would be easier to say without him looking back at me. But it wasn't. "This isn't about us. I can't leave Marc. — Rachel Vincent

A theory of reality must not only explain reality, but also knowledge about that reality because knowing reality is part of reality. — Ashish Dalela