# glossing over language differences

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/glossing-over-language-differences/13891>\
**Category:** CSG1992\
**Created:** [March 18, 1992, 6:20pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/glossing-over-language-differences/13891 "1992-03-18T18:20:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bnhpct](http://discourse.iapct.org/user_avatar/discourse.iapct.org/bnhpct/32/34_2.png) [@bnhpct](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/bnhpct)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 1992, 6:20pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/glossing-over-language-differences/13891/1 "1992-03-18T18:20:21Z")

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The perils of relying on English glosses to indicate meanings of  
morphemes in another language are often mentioned but the depth  
of our reliance on our native "background vernacular" is I think  
seldom really appreciated. Same principles apply in spades to  
invented metalanguages for semantic representation.

Here's an interesting case in point excerpted from the Linguist Digest.

> **···**
>
> -=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
> 
> 6)  
> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 92 12:05:20 EST  
> From: [cowan@uunet.UU.NET](mailto:cowan@uunet.UU.NET) (John Cowan)  
> Subject: OVS
> 
> I have never really understood the necessity for talking of object-first  
> languages, using this term as a cover for OVS, OSV, and VOS languages.  
> What reason is there to believe that such a language actually has a different  
> order rather than believing that it takes a different view of what its  
> verbs mean? Using Okrand's study of Klingon as the readily-available  
> example (:-)):
> 
> &nbsp;&nbsp;puq legh yaS  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;child sees officer  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;The officer sees the child.
> 
> What reason is there to gloss "legh" as "sees" rather than "is-seen-by"?  
> It seems to me a mere prejudice to believe that seeing is "inherently"  
> more natural, and more deserving of a single morpheme, than being seen.  
> So talk of the rarity of object-first languages can be reduced to talk  
> of the rarity of "is-seen-by" as a single morpheme with "sees" as the  
> derived form.
> 
> --  
> [cowan@snark.thyrsus.com](mailto:cowan@snark.thyrsus.com) ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;e'osai ko sarji la lojban
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Linguist List: Vol-3-262.  
> \<\*\>
> 
> -=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-
> 
> This brings us rather sharply back to the old Whorf-Sapir(-Humboldt)  
> hypothesis. Do differences in language correspond to differences  
> in the world of perceptions in which we live and move and have our  
> being? And the epistemological toughie: whatever your answer, how  
> can we know that?
> 
> &nbsp;&nbsp;Bruce  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;[bn@bbn.com](mailto:bn@bbn.com)